Sam Stosur has bowed out of the Brisbane International in a straight set defeat – 6-4, 6-2 – against world No.54 Iveta Benesova.

This is the third time in a row that Stosur has not made it further than the second round in this competition.

However, the tennis champ – who has been touted as Australian’s next hope in tennis after winning the US Open last year – is still confident she can do well in the Australian Open coming up next month.

At a press conference, Stosur said that she is hoping it was just a “bad day” for her and she will “bounce back next week and the week after and play a lot better”.

“Of course it’s disappointing – I never wanted to go out in the second round again, but you’ve got to look at it for what it is and say ‘ok, today was one match’, and I don’t want to dwell on it, I want to go into next week feeling like I can play better and then the next week after that feel even better again.

“So I guess it is back to the practice court and keep working hard… I know I’ve done whatever I can to try and set myself up for a good summer, and now obviously this wasn’t the ideal start, but I’m not going to panic and think that it’s all lost, because of today.”