MELBOURNE (Reuters) - Had it not been for Anna Kalinskaya's last-minute withdrawal at the Australian Open, Eva Lys would probably be on the road to her next tournament after losing in the third round of the qualifying event at Melbourne Park.
Instead, the German "lucky loser" is now looking forward to a fourth-round meeting with second seed Iga Swiatek at the year's first Grand Slam after coming through a 4-6 6-3 6-3 win over Romania's Jaqueline Cristian on Saturday.
"Obviously I'm very, very happy to be making it to second week. I feel like second week was always such a dream for me," Lys told reporters.
The Kyiv-born 23-year-old lost her only previous match with Swiatek at Stuttgart three years ago but believes she was meant to play her on the grandest stage, even if it all feels a bit surreal at the moment.
"I don't know when the realisation will kick in," she said.
"It's definitely an amazing situation to be in, especially knowing that I was lucky loser.
"I think I found a picture of me sleeping the day I got in. I was just trying to spend the time at the venue, trying to do something because I didn't really know what to do with my time. I was just preparing for my flight the next day.
"It's an insane story, how fast it happened. It's been a couple of days. Those days have totally changed my life. So I'm definitely really thankful."
After getting into the main draw, Lys changed her flight out of Australia to Sunday. Those plans will have to change again.
"Right now I think after the press conference we're going to go and try to change it a little bit further," Lys added.
"It's actually really funny. We just picked a date. We're like, 'Okay, Sunday's six days away. We're just going to pick Sunday'. I'm glad we have to change it now."
(Reporting by Shrivathsa Sridhar in Melbourne; Editing by Peter Rutherford)
