Home for Christmas for "the first time in 10 years", the 24-year-old said he has played around 16 matches in 25 days in preparation for the qualifying draw, which takes place in Doha due to COVID-19 travel restrictions.

"It's a lot of tournaments - 16 matches," he said.

"Obviously those tournaments were round robins so I was able to compete, even if I did lose the first day you still had four confirmed matches in each tournament.

ELSEWHERE IN SPORT

"Then I played premier league for my club in Melbourne - Royal South Yarra. [In that] I played [Marc] Polmans, who is [ranked] 120 and I beat him 6-3 6-4 so that just shows that this year, training and everything, has been a positive for me but right now I'm ready to go back out on the match court."

Granted a permit to play tennis every day during Victoria's lockdown, Bourchier trained five or six times a week during the challenging time, most recently winning a UTR event in Queensland last week.

Jumping from 750 in the world to 270 throughout 2019, Tasmania's only male professional tennis player was disappointed he couldn't consolidate his ranking this year but believes he has put himself in the best possible position for a tilt at a maiden Grand Slam main draw.

"Qualifying is going to be taking place in Doha which is very unusual so we head over there and go into a COVID bubble on the way home.

"If I do qualify I'll come back but if not I'll stay over for a few months and try and get my worthwhile over there."

Bourchier's rankings spike gave him the chance to qualify for the Open earlier this year before the worldwide pandemic put a knife through the sporting calendar, falling to Prajnesh Gunneswaran 6-2 6-4 - signalling the fourth time he's fallen at the first hurdle of qualifying.

He says the time off has allowed the Hobart product to refresh and heal some lingering injuries which were going to keep him off the court.

"I've been travelling since the age of 14, going over to Europe or North America for a few months every winter. So this was the first year I've spent a fair chunk in Australia and I feel like it can snowball and go in the right direction for me.

"I missed six months of tournaments where I would have been overseas in North America, Asia and Europe.

"Some European tournaments got cancelled but others were still on and those Europeans got to compete week in, week out.

"It's just tough being from Australia, so isolated, but I definitely wouldn't change anything being from Tassie."