Sara Tomic will shoot for a ranking inside the world’s top 200 players after being denied an Australian Open junior crown.

Tomic’s last and best Australian Open girls’ campaign ended in a semi-final loss at Melbourne Park on Friday.

The 17-year-old younger sister of Australian No.1 Bernard Tomic went down 6-2 6-3 to fifth seed Vera Lapko from Belarus.

She misses the chance to emulate her brother’s achievement of winning a junior slam – as he did at the 2008 Australian Open and 2009 US Open – but leaves Melbourne full of positives.

“I played my best. I’ve enjoyed myself here and I’m really happy,” she said.

While Tomic is eligible to play the remaining majors as a junior, she said her mind was already on the senior circuits.

“I’m definitely playing pro tournaments,” she said.

“I’ve only played five, six months of tournaments and I’m already 450 in the world.

“So hopefully top 200 by the end of the year.”

First on her list of priorities is celebrating her birthday – she turns 18 on Friday – and then Tomic will head west for an ITF event in Perth.

Lapko will play No.2 seed Tereza Mihalikova from Slovakia in the final.

Fellow Australian Alex De Minaur missed out on winning his semi-final, falling 3-6 6-4 6-3 to Uzbek Jurabek Karimov.