For the second straight year, Australia’s top-ranked woman may not even make the Australian Open, with hopes a brilliant home tournament won’t go unrewarded for Kim Birrell.

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The 26-year-old backed up her stunning upset of world No.8 Emma Navarro with a straight sets win over world No.35 Anastasia Potapova, 7-6(2) 6-2, at the Brisbane International on Thursday.

It sees the Queenslander through to the quarter-finals of a WTA 500-level event for the first time in her injury-ravaged career.

“It has been a long road. I have had a few injuries, but you know, as does everyone who plays professional sport, and everyone has their trials and tribulations in life,” Birrell said.

“I’ve been super lucky to just have such an incredible family and team behind me, and they believed in me when I didn’t even think I was going to get back on court. They encouraged me, and they’re pretty much the only reason why I’m back playing at this level today.”

She has a golden opportunity to make the semi-finals, as she’ll face an unseeded opponent in her last-eight match – either Anhelina Kalinina or Yue Yuan.

In fact there are no unseeded players left in their half of the draw at all, making the path to the final wide open.

As it stands, Birrell has already moved to a career-best WTA ranking of No.99, which makes her Australia’s new top-ranked women’s player surpassing Olivia Gadecki – who went 0-2 in Australia’s failed United Cup campaign, dropping out of the top 100 in the process.

YEAR-END AUSTRALIAN WTA NO.1 PLAYER

2024: Olivia Gadecki (97th overall)

2023: Arina Rodionova (114th)

2022: Ajla Tomljanovic (33rd)

2021-17: Ash Barty (1st x3, 15th, 17th)

2016-06: Sam Stosur (21st, 27th, 22nd, 18th, 9th, 6th x2, 13th, 52nd, 46th, 29th)

Winning the Brisbane title could see Birrell move inside the top 50, yet even that wouldn’t guarantee her a spot at her home grand slam.

Because Birrell was ranked No.113 when the Australian Open entry lists were confirmed last month, she was not given an automatic main draw spot – and surprisingly she was snubbed for a wildcard, too.

It’s an eerily similar scenario to last year, when top-ranked Aussie Arina Rodionova was passed over for a wildcard and tweeted “wish I could say I was surprised”, arguing after her exit from qualifying that Tennis Australia does not like her.

Ironically Birrell was one of the women given a wildcard ahead of Rodionova, yet this time she was the one overlooked.

Daria Saville and Ajla Tomljanovic were unsurprising picks, given their stronger track records and name value, but lower-ranked players Maya Joint, Talia Gibson and Emerson Jones – the world No.1 junior player, but ranked No.379 in the WTA – were also selected over Birrell.

Birrell will be seeded in Australian Open qualifying, which begins Monday January 6, but will need to win three matches just to earn a spot in the main draw.

And as Rodionova showed last year, when she was knocked out straight away, that’s no guarantee with massive variance in player quality and results once you’re outside the top-100 ranked players.

If Birrell is truly good enough she’ll make the tournament. But the fact Tennis Australia will, once again, open its grand slam without a guaranteed spot for the best-performing woman in the country is an oddity at best, and unfair at worst.