Samantha Stosur wary of unknown

SAMANTHA Stosur is venturing into the unknown as she looks to build early momentum towards a breakthrough performance at Wimbledon.

Sam Stosur

SAMANTHA Stosur is venturing into the unknown as she looks to build early momentum towards a breakthrough performance at Wimbledon.

The Australian 14th seed opens her campaign tomorrow against Slovakian teenager Anna Schmiedlova and admits she has little, if any, idea of what to expect.

Lucky loser Schmiedlova, ranked 119th, lost in qualifying but earned a spot in the main draw because of a withdrawal.

“I don't know her really at all,” Stosur said on the eve of her 11th Wimbledon campaign.

“I'm sure she'll be trying to make the most of her luck ... and I certainly have to be ready.

“In some ways it (not knowing your opponent) can make it a little bit harder, in other ways it's not so bad because you can focus more on what you're going to do.

“But being here at Wimbledon, I'm certainly not going to take any match for granted or lightly.”

Despite her successes on hard courts and clay, 2011 US Open champion Stosur has struggled to make an impact on the lawns of the All England Club, having never made it past the third round.

On paper, she looks to have a decent chance of improving the record in an open section of the draw, though her reward for doing so would be a fourth-round clash with top seed Serena Williams.

While results suggest grass simply doesn't suit Stosur's game, she still believes she's capable of having success.

“There isn't really any real pressure on me here but of course I want to do well and I want to do better than I have before,” Stosur said.

“So far I think my lead-up at least has been quite good, I'm happy with where I'm at right now and hopefully that can only mean good things.”

It is the first time Australia has had only one woman in the singles at Wimbledon since 1950, when Thelma Long was the sole representative.

Tennis Australia's head of professional tennis Todd Woodbridge admitted it was disappointing to see.

“It may be a sign of how tennis has changed ... even in Australia we've always been known as a grass court nation and we now play the majority of our tennis on hard courts,” Woodbridge said.

“... I think it's also probably reflective of the fact we've got a really good young group of girls coming along underneath Ash Barty but we have to move them through.

“The girls that are there now, Casey (Dellacqua) is a little older, Anastasia (Rodionova) is in her 30s ... it's generational change starting to happen but there's no reason why we can't get those girls back in there.”

Barty, Dellacqua and Rodionova lost in qualifying, along with Olivia Rogowska and Sacha Jones, while Jarmila Gajdosova is taking a break from the tour due to illness.

AAP