Storm Hunter Achieves Rare Grand Slam Milestone at US Open

Storm Hunter has spent most of her career slipping through side doors and fighting up service roads. This week in New York, she has kicked down the front entrance.

The 32-year-old Australian has qualified for the US Open main draw for the first time, completing a rare career sweep of qualifying at all four grand slams and sending statisticians scrambling to confirm what instinct already suggested: no active Australian has done this before.

It is not a neat, storybook milestone. It is bruised, delayed and hard-earned – which makes it perfectly Storm Hunter.

A qualifier run that refused to die

Hunter’s path through qualifying at Flushing Meadows was anything but routine.

She started by knocking out compatriot and close friend Maddison Inglis, an emotional way to open a campaign that already carried personal weight. Then came survival mode: in her second match she stared down two match points and clawed her way back, refusing to accept that the latest chapter of her comeback would end in the outer courts of Queens.

The pressure kept rising. Her final qualifying match stretched over two days, a 24-hour weather delay slicing the contest in half. Rhythm gone, momentum interrupted, tension building. Hunter still found a way, grinding out a third straight sudden-death victory to punch her ticket to the main draw.

“This is the last slam on my list to tick off to get through qualies and coming in I hadn't played many singles matches in the last few months so, yeah, it feels amazing,” she said, the understatement belying the scale of the achievement.

From Achilles rupture to New York return

The numbers tell only part of the story. Hunter missed more than a year after rupturing her Achilles tendon, an injury that can quietly end careers, especially for players in their 30s who do not have the luxury of time.

She returns now to the US Open main draw for the first time since 2023, but as a very different proposition: a former world No.1 in doubles who has rebuilt herself again as a singles threat, a late bloomer who has learned to treat every appearance on a grand slam stage as borrowed time.

“There's been lots of times in my career I didn't think I'd be back playing at this level,” she admitted. “So to be back in the main draw of a slam is awesome, and I'm just going to go out and enjoy it and give it a good crack.”

Enjoyment, though, will have to coexist with one of the toughest opening assignments on the schedule.

Kostyuk awaits – and the pressure, Hunter insists, is on the seed

Hunter’s “reward” for her qualifying heroics is a day-one showdown with Marta Kostyuk, the 11th seed and one of the form players of the season after semifinal runs at both Roland Garros and Wimbledon.

“Yeah, it's tough,” Hunter said, not dressing it up. “She's obviously having a really good year. She's a great player, very physical with the way she plays and a really good competitor.”

The challenge is obvious. Kostyuk hits big, moves well and thrives in physical battles. Hunter, coming off three tense qualifying matches and facing a rapid turnaround into the main draw, will have to recalibrate quickly.

Yet she did not sound like a player walking into Arthur Ashe Stadium with dread.

“It's going to be tough. Obviously a very quick turnaround from playing qualifiers to my first round tomorrow, but I'm feeling good and she's the one who's under all the pressure to play against me and I have practised with her before.

I know what her level is and I know it's going to be a challenge, but I'm up for a challenge. It's going to be fun. I'm going to enjoy it.”

The message is clear: Kostyuk has the ranking, the seeding and the expectations. Hunter has nothing to protect and everything to swing at.

Australian contingent opens its campaign

Hunter is one of six Australians on court on Monday in New York, part of a quietly ambitious group looking to make early inroads in the draw.

• Kim Birrell faces Petra Marcinko,
• Talia Gibson also meets Croatian opposition in experienced campaigner Donna Vekic.
• Rising talent Taylah Preston takes on American Alycia Parks in a clash that should test her nerve as much as her game.

On the men’s side, Adam Walton opens against China’s Yibing Wu, and Aleksandar Vukic meets Japan’s Rei Sakamoto in the only all-Aussie male assignments on day one.

Sixth seed Alex de Minaur, the standard-bearer of Australian tennis right now, begins his campaign on Tuesday (Wednesday AEST), carrying the weight of expectation that Hunter has so deftly sidestepped.

She has already made her piece of history. Now comes the real question: with nothing to lose and a career of near-misses behind her, how much damage can Storm Hunter do in the main draw?