Emerson Jones rests her racquet on the floor, then her head on the racquet, finally a towel on her head. She’s staring at the electric blue lining on Ken Rosewall Arena. Or has she just converted to Buddhism, thoughts all running free in a meditative state and simply getting some shut eye?

It’s right at the pointy end of a second set which has more twists and turns than an Agatha Christie thriller. Watching how players deal with stress and anxiety is a fascinating exercise, and at this changeover of ends, there are about 50 people watching Australia’s teen phenomenon looking like she’s about to go to sleep with a racquet as her pillow.

“I didn’t even realise I was doing that,” she laughs.

Really?

“I don’t know what I was thinking.”

Even before the chair umpire can call time, Jones wakes from her slumber and sets an alarm before the chair can. Time. She’s already waiting for her Korean opponent, Eunhye Lee, a lion stalking their prey for the final kill.

Jones breaks Lee’s jittery serve, which had already dumped two jittery second balls into the net at 5-4 when serving for the second set. Down 5-3 in the second set, Jones peels off the last four games to win another round at the Perpetual NSW Open as she attempts to defend the title she won, remarkably, as a 16-year-old. She still hasn’t seen her name on the honour board yet.

As players on outside courts all around her beat their chest, roar like they want to be heard in the next suburb, flay racquets in frustration, the most you get out of Jones is a few silent fist pumps. She makes church mouses sound like old school rockers.

“Last week in Brisbane, I wasn’t too happy with how I performed with the mental side of things,” Jones says. “I said to myself, ‘I really need to start working on this’. In women’s tennis, you have to be mentally strong. I’m definitely trying my hardest to work on no emotions and just being positive.

“I’m happy you said that actually.”

Cruz Hewitt’s dad might have stole a few headlines at Sydney Olympic Park this week, but Emerson Jones’ mum deserves a few, too. She’s Loretta Harrop, a former triathlon world champion and Olympic Games silver medallist in 2004. Jones was only born on the eve of the Beijing Games four years later.

It can’t be easy being a kid trying to forge a successful sporting career when your parents have done just that. Comparisons are inevitable, unfair, and can be hard to shake. But in Jones’ case, she doesn’t have to emerge from her mother’s shadow because she doesn’t really know how big it is.

“Mum was one of the toughest in her sport mentally, but I never watch her things,” she says. “She’s just mum to me. It’s not like, ‘she did this, she did that, and I should be a lot more like her’. I just haven’t really watched her stuff, no.”

It might be a good thing because the way Jones plays her tennis, she can get the job done in the swim and bike without even bothering with the run leg. Why win in three when you can do it in two?

Now, the challenge is stepping onto the full-time women’s circuit after achieving the world’s No.1 junior ranking last year. She was the first Australian to achieve the milestone since Jelena Dokic.

“Still to this day, it gives me confidence because no one can take that away from you,” Jones says.

Inevitably, people want to label Jones as the next Ash Barty. Barty says she’s the first Emerson Jones, albeit one still trying to figure out the backhand slice which bamboozled so many of the world’s best for many years.

“Before Wimbledon last year she hit with me on the grass and gave me a few tips,” Jones says. “She hit some slices … I didn’t think she had touched a racquet for a bit and she came out hitting slice winners against me. It was insane.

“I get a lot of questions about people comparing me to Ash. It’s difficult to do what Ash has done. She’s definitely one of a kind in what she’s done. I look up to her very much, but I just want to focus on what I’m doing.”

Jones’ ranking has already jumped to 176 and she was only one more win in qualifying away from being in the main draw of Wimbledon and the US Open. Her wildcard into the Australian Open was an unfortunate meeting with Elena Rybakina, who blasted to a 6-1, 6-1 win.

It would be a foolish person to think it will be the same story again in 2026, with Jones’ star rising quickly. Before then, there will be a few beach days with the family. Jones likes to bodyboard, her mum surfs and dad Brad, a former Australian Rules footballer, will jump on a paddleboard. “That’s definitely what takes me away from tennis and it connects us as a family,” Jones says.

There’s not much the family can’t do, and that includes teaching the mental side of sport. Which is why the next time Jones looks like she’s fallen asleep on her racquet, it might just be all part of the plan.