'Stressful': Maddison Inglis wipes away tears after defeating close friend as 'strange' scheduling questioned

An emotional Maddison Inglis wiped away tears after defeating close friend Kimberly Birrell in a three-set thriller at Melbourne Park on Tuesday night.

The pair, who have been best friends since they were children, shared a long embrace at the net after duking it out over three hours. In the end Inglis prevailed 7-6(6), 6-7(9), 6-4.

After taking a moment to compose herself, Inglis admitted that the win felt amazing but came at the difficult expense of a friend.

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"It's really hard to play such a good friend, you know," she said during her on-court interview.

"The last few days have been a bit stressful.

"It's so tough. It was an amazing match with Kim.

"I absolutely adore her, so it was really hard to see her on the other side, but I'm stoked that I could play through those feelings and be in the second round.

"It means the world."

Inglis reflected on the mental battle of the three-hour Australian Open first round marathon.

"She's honestly the queen of comebacks, so I knew I was gonna have to win it, and I couldn't get it done in the second," she said of Birrell's reputation for never giving up.

"I really did my best to just put it behind me and just remember that I was playing some really great tennis, and that I just had to trust myself and know that I can do it.

"I got a bit lucky, it went my way today, and I'm really happy."

Speaking in her post-match press conference, Inglis was asked about the scheduling of an all-Australian clash being so late.

The pair hit the court after 9pm and did not finish until after midnight.

"I don't consider myself a night person, so it's different to get going, you know, this late in the day, but, you know, if it's gonna be for anything, it's for the Australian Open, so I was so pumped to," she said.

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"It was a long day waiting around to play a friend, which was tough but you just gotta do your best and distract yourself. Have a little nap in the day which I was able to do. I'll be tired tomorrow, that's for sure.

"We just spoke to Dasha, she had some uncertainty about when she was playing. She ended up playing late as well and it did tax her in the afternoon, the stress and not knowing when to play."

In her first match under the Australian flag at Melbourne Park, Daria Kasatkina went down to Czech qualifier Nikola Bartunkova. She also spoke of the difficulty of having to wait all day to play.

"The body was cramping a little bit, it's stress plus waiting around basically like about 12 hours, because when you don't know exactly when you're playing, you're kinda stressed," she said.

"Waking up and you are in this state of mind which consumes a lot of energy."

Emma Raducanu also pointed to scheduling earlier in the week, when she was scheduled as the second match in the night session at Margaret Court Arena.

"It's very complicated to organise women's schedules after a (men's) match that could potentially end in five sets," the British star said.

"For me, it doesn't make any sense. After seeing it, my reaction was like 'Oh, I'm playing late.' You just have to deal with it and adjust your day to that schedule. I think I've never been in that situation before.

"Maybe only once when I played the US Open semis. Besides that, I think I've never played that late."

The Australian Open always schedules one men's match and one women's match during the prime time slot at night. Most of the grand slams work that way except Roland Garros, which only schedules a men's match.

Sometimes women play first, and sometimes it's the men.