Australia's Casey Dellacqua may have crashed out of her home Grand Slam in devastating style on Wednesday night, but the 26-year-old is more than happy with the way her game is progressing.
Dellacqua was bundled out of the tournament in under an hour by No.3 seed Victoria Azarenka on Wednesday as she was attempting to make it into the final 32 for the third time in her career.
But Dellacqua was not downcast after the thrashing, insisiting she was just happy to be back on Rod Laver Arena after missing out on the Open last year though injury.
"It's kind of good for me to be out there tonight and play that level," Dellacqua said after the 6-1 6-0 loss.
"I wasn't even playing this time last year, so I'm quite realistic where I'm at."
"I know I'm not where I want to be and I have a a lot of work to do."
"But it's all good."
"I will just keep working hard. I've got doubles tomorrow, I have mixed this week and a big year to look forward to."
And Dellacqua knows exactly what she wants to achieve during the remaining of 2012.
"By winning a match my ranking is going to scoot up a little bit," she said.
"I'd like to be in the French Open off my own ranking and take things from there."
"My first goal is to get inside the top 100 and I think this week I might be around 110."
while Dellacqua is shooting just to get inside the top 100, Azarenka is fastly firming to clinch her first Grand Slam title at Melbourne Park after dropping just two games in the opening two rounds.
A third round battle against in-form German Mona Barthel is going to prove a tougher ask for Azarenka, but Dellacqua believes her second round opponent can go all the way.
"She (Azarenka) is number three in the world and is a bloody good player so I think she will be tough to beat," Dellacqua added.
"I know it wasn't my best night, but I didn't feel like I played like the worst match of my career."