Wodonga's air quality index exceeded 300 when play was due to start at 8am, forcing delays of more than four hours.

Tournament officials continued to provide updates on the state of play and made a final call at 11.30am, which saw the reading drop below the cut-off of 200 and allow matches to begin.

Players were called back to the venue and play resumed at 12.30pm with opening round singles matches across a number of age groups.

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Tournament director Doug Smith has had his hands full and is hopeful there won't be any further delays between now and Sunday.

"We had the smoke rule brought in this morning because it was well above the 200 (on the air quality index)," Smith said.

"All matches got cancelled until about 11.30am when the air cleared up.

"It was below the 200 and above 150, so we did a reduced set format.

"All the doubles got cancelled and we focused on doing all the singles matches for the first and second round.

"It's been a bit unprecedented, especially having the new smoke rule introduced by Tennis Australia."

The Tennis Australia policy was only brought in late last year, which Smith admits has made things difficult.

"We made the call at 8.30 this (Wednesday) morning to wait it as long as we could and now we've got a playable tournament," he said.

"We made the last call at 11.30am and we started putting matches on at 12.30am.

"It's very difficult because it's the first time we've had to enforce a smoke rule and it's a new thing for everybody.

"Other than that, the tournament is running well."

Margaret Court Cup open women's champion Ashleigh Simes made a strong start to the Wodonga tournament with a 6-1, 6-4 victory against Annika Wise, while open men's champion David Poole has drawn Daniel Neville in his first match to be played today.

Chelsea McGrath was among a host of Border winners, seeing off Saskia Anindita 7-5, 3-6, 10-4, in the under-16 girls, while Rory Carlyle was a 6-0, 6-0, victor against Spencer Finch in the under-14 boys.

Today's matches are set to start from 8am, including the opening doubles games.