Emerson Jones – Australia’s first junior world No.1 girl since Jelena Dokic in 1998 – spends most weeks bouncing between her Gold Coast home and a Brisbane townhouse near the Queensland Tennis Centre.
That is when the 16-year-old rising star with the blazing backhand is not globetrotting the international tennis circuit alongside her brother Hayden, the world’s 17th-ranked boy.
Australia’s Emerson Jones (right) made her second junior grand slam final of the year at Wimbledon.Credit: Getty Images
Jones’ father, Brad, winner of the AFL Queensland league’s Brownlow Medal equivalent 25 years ago, built the townhouse to avoid a daily 160-kilometre round trip for his children’s training regime.
Jones, the junior Australian Open and Wimbledon finalist is considered the country’s most promising female player since former world No.1 Ash Barty – but is not even the best athlete in her family yet.
That honour goes to Jones’ mother, Loretta Harrop, a world champion triathlete who also won an Olympic silver medal.
On the five days each week that Jones is in Brisbane, she starts with a one-hour gym session, hits for two hours, heads to school at the centre, then warms up again for another 90-odd minutes of crushing forehands and backhands, plus more gym work.
Rinse, repeat. The Joneses are all-in on this journey.
“My husband and I have always made sure that we’re there with Emerson, no matter where she goes – and that’s tough,” Harrop told this masthead. “I finished my career because I’d had enough of travelling, but I stepped straight back into it [as a mum]. We’re really proud of both kids.”
Ascending to No.1
Jones, who is coached by David Taylor, the man who guided Sam Stosur to the 2011 US Open title, did not know her rankings milestone was coming.
Once she found out, the fiercely competitive teenager’s disappointment at losing in the third round of the US Open girls’ singles, where she was the top seed, overrode her joy.
“Obviously, it’s pretty cool, after thinking about it, but this happened in the US, and I wasn’t exactly happy with my result,” Jones said. “I wasn’t expecting it until someone told me that I’m going to be No.1 – and it was really great to hear that.”
Harrop encouraged her daughter to “smell the roses” every once in a while, and asked Hayden to take his sister out for ice cream to celebrate. Jones treated herself to a pistachio gelato.
Loretta Harrop celebrates winning the World Triathlon Championship in Montreal in 1999.Credit: AP
“She sort of brushed it off for a few days, and didn’t seem very excited,” Harrop said. “But these stepping stones along the way are huge. It’s that same old problem, isn’t it? I guess when they start achieving, the expectations get higher.”
The only other Australians in the past two decades to be junior No.1 were Nick Kyrgios (2012), Luke Saville (2011) and Jason Kubler (2009).
Jones is restricted to 12 women’s tournaments until her 17th birthday in July, per the WTA Tour’s age eligibility rules.
However, by finishing runner-up at Melbourne Park and Wimbledon this year, she can contest two extra events. Jones could bolster that tally further if she performs strongly at the ITF World Tennis Tour Junior Finals, held in China from October 16-20. Hayden, 18, qualified for the boys’ draw.
Mum to the rescue
Jones had already gone deeper than ever before at a junior grand slam when she faced Japanese second seed Sara Saito in the Australian Open quarter-finals in January.
But the Saito showdown did not start well, after the emotional letdown of Jones watching her brother lose his quarter-final 7-5 in the final set. She was 4-1 down when rain postponed her match until the next day.
“I was really upset because I was getting absolutely killed,” Jones said. Enter Harrop. She travelled to Melbourne, but was not in the crowd for the first five games, or Jones’ previous three matches.
Harrop is still considered one of the mentally strongest triathletes ever.
One of the best-known stories about her is how early in her career she recorded a below-average VO2 test score, which measures the amount of oxygen in the air someone exhales compared to what they inhale.
Hayden Jones is a top-20 junior.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
An ordinary score typically is a bad sign for an endurance athlete’s prospects, but Harrop defied that, in large part thanks to her mindset. After some words of wisdom the previous night from Harrop, Jones returned to upset Saito, 3-6, 6-1, 6-1, and reach the semi-finals, with mum in the stands.
“She showed up because she thought I could be mentally strong,” Jones said. “My mum is great to talk to about that because she was one of the toughest athletes in any sport, to be honest.”
Australian Open wildcard?
The expectation in Australian tennis circles is that Jones will score a wildcard and make her debut in the women’s singles at her home grand slam in January.
She is part of an emerging crop of women in the country, eager to fill the cavernous void left by Barty’s retirement.
Olivia Gadecki is the oldest at 22, and just made her maiden WTA final to burst inside the top 100, while teenagers Maya Joint and Taylah Preston and 20-year-old Talia Gibson are close to doing the same. They all idolise Barty, whom Jones turned to before her Wimbledon final.
“She’s just such a great role model,” Jones said. “I asked for a bit of advice on how to handle things because being Wimbledon, it was one of the biggest junior tournaments I’ve made a final of.”
Almost all Jones’ feats make her the first since Barty, and there will be significant expectations ahead, but the young star is taking it all in her stride.
Emerson Jones is rated as Australia’s most promising women’s player since former world No.1 Ash Barty.Credit: Getty Images
“It would be an amazing opportunity to play AO main draw, or even quallies,” she said. “I know a lot of people have high expectations on me, but I don’t really think about it because it would just put pressure on me.”
Jones’ parents, her older brother, coach Taylor, and her agent, Carlos Cuadrado – once a junior prodigy himself – will have a role in shielding her from that.
“Emerson does a pretty good job keeping herself grounded,” Harrop said.
“We, as a family, love to go surfing, and her best friend lives up the road when she’s on the Gold Coast, so we make sure that she still stays in touch with a lot of that.
“I think that’s why she’s doing well because she’s very happy, and she does love tennis. She takes losses pretty well, as well as the wins, which is huge in a sport where there is so much losing.”
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