MOSCOW, January 21. /TASS/. Russian tennis star Maria Sharapova has failed to clear Round 1 of this year’s opening Grand Slam series tournament, the 2020 Australian Open, after losing on Tuesday to Donna Vekic of Croatia.

In the match at the Rod Laver Arena that lasted 1 hour and 21 minutes, the 23-year-old Croatian player, who is seeded 19 at the tournament, breezed past her 32-year-old Russian opponent with straight sets win of 6-3; 6-4.

Vekic is now set to play in the next round against the winner of Round 1 encounter between Alize Cornet of France and Romania’s Monica Niculescu.

Speaking after her defeat to Vekic on Tuesday, the Russian tennis player said she was not sure if she would be playing at the Australian Open next year.

"It's tough for me to tell what's going to happen in 12 months' time … I haven't thought of my schedule moving forward from here yet … I can speak about my struggles and the things that I've gone through with my shoulder, but it's not really in my character to," the tournament’s official website quoted Sharapova as saying.

"So, you know, I was there. I put myself out there," Sharapova said speaking about her match with Vekic. "You know, as tough as it was I finished the match and, yeah, it wasn't the way that I wanted."

The 2020 Australian Open tournament is played on the courts of Melbourne Park between January 20 and February 2 and has $49.1 million in prize money up for grabs. Serbia’s Novak Djokovic and Japan’s Naomi Osaka are the defending 2020 Australian Open champions in men and women’s singles respectively.

Sharapova, who is currently ranked 145th in the WTA Rankings, is Russia’s most decorated female tennis player having won a total of five Grand Slam tournaments, namely the Australian Open in 2008, the French Open in 2012 and 2014, Wimbledon in 2004 and the US Open in 2006.

She also clinched the silver in the 2012 Summer Olympics in London and was the 2008 Federations Cup champion.

The Russian player skipped a vast part of the tennis season last year due to a shoulder injury and she stayed out of competitions from February to mid-June. Last August, she parted ways with her Swedish coach Thomas Hogstedt, who had trained her between 2011 and 2013 and with whom she resumed their training partnership in 2018.