Just days after going down to Australian teenager Maya Joint in a semi-final in Morocco, Ajla Tomljanovic channelled her inner “anger” to atone for the loss and advance at Roland-Garros.

Tomljanovic retired after the first set in her loss to Joint in Morocco with an abdominal complaint as the 19-year-old went on to win the tournament, in both singles and doubles.

Joint would have been forgiven for still riding high from her maiden WTA tournament victory, going down 6-1, 6-3 to the veteran on a fast clay surface.

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Tomljanovic said a pre-game chat with her coach put her in the right mindset against the rising Joint.

“My coach kind of gave me a really good pep talk – ‘You’ve got to get angry, get determined’ – and it really worked today,” Tomljanovic, 32, said.

“Maya had been playing so well, I had a few days to think about it and knew if I don’t come out this way on the attack, it’s going to be really tough. It’s just nice to see everything pay off when I play the right way.”

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“I put a lot of thought into how I wanted to come out today with the adjustments I wanted to do from Rabat, and it’s never easy to come back after such a short turnaround for Maya to come into a slam, so I took advantage of that.

“She’s so young, she’s going to learn to deal with those emotions down the road and you know she’s been playing great tennis, so I’m just really happy with today’s win.”

Tomljanovic said she used her “slow” start in Morocco to make changes for her round one clash at Roland-Garros.

“I just felt like I had to be the aggressor, you know, and I felt like I came out a bit slow and she was just kind of bossing me around the court and I felt like I should be the one trying to do that.

“So whenever I didn’t do that today, she took advantage. So it was just kind of that mindset of being a bit more aggressive.”

The victory sets up Tomljanovic to play fourth seed Jasmine Paolini, who reached the final four last year.

Earlier, Alexei Popyrin finally won a first round match in Paris in six years, downing Yoshihito Nishioka, when the Japanese players had to retire with an injured back while trailing 7-5, 6-4, 1-2.

“I feel like my game is starting to come back to me, the results are starting to show a bit more, there’s more consistency and match wins every week. That’s really important,” said Popyrin, who plays Alejandro Tabilo of Chile in the next round.

Jordan Thompson was defeated 6-4, 6-2, 6-1 by rising Czech Jiri Lehecka.

Elsewhere in Aussie results from Paris, Chris O’Connell was beaten 7-5, 6-3, 7-6(3) by No.22 Ugo Humbert, while Aleksandar Vukic was defeated 6-4, 6-4, 6-4 by No.24 Karen Khachanov.

Daria Saville was also outclassed 6-2, 6-1 by Australian Open champ Madison Keys and Kim Birrell was hammered by Romanian Jaqueline Cristian 6-1, 6-0.