{"id":27540,"date":"2025-11-21T13:18:58","date_gmt":"2025-11-21T02:18:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/nsw\/?p=27540"},"modified":"2025-11-21T13:45:08","modified_gmt":"2025-11-21T02:45:08","slug":"forget-the-comparisons-emerson-jones-is-building-her-own-legacy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/nsw\/news\/2025\/11\/21\/forget-the-comparisons-emerson-jones-is-building-her-own-legacy","title":{"rendered":"Forget the Comparisons: Emerson Jones Is Building Her Own Legacy"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
Emerson Jones rests her racquet on the floor, then her head on the racquet, finally a towel on her head. She\u2019s 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?<\/div>\n
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It\u2019s 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\u2019s teen phenomenon looking like she\u2019s about to go to sleep with a racquet as her pillow.<\/div>\n
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\u201cI didn\u2019t even realise I was doing that,\u201d she laughs.<\/div>\n
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Really?<\/div>\n
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\u201cI don\u2019t know what I was thinking.\u201d<\/div>\n
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Even before the chair umpire can call time, Jones wakes from her slumber and sets an alarm before the chair can.\u00a0Time.\u00a0<\/i>She\u2019s already waiting for her Korean opponent, Eunhye Lee, a lion stalking their prey for the final kill.<\/div>\n
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Jones breaks Lee\u2019s 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\u2019t seen her name on the honour board yet.<\/div>\n
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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.<\/div>\n
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\u201cLast week in Brisbane, I wasn\u2019t too happy with how I performed with the mental side of things,\u201d Jones says. \u201cI said to myself, \u2018I really need to start working on this\u2019. In women\u2019s tennis, you have to be mentally strong. I\u2019m definitely trying my hardest to work on no emotions and just being positive.<\/div>\n
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\u201cI\u2019m happy you said that actually.\u201d<\/div>\n
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Cruz Hewitt\u2019s dad might have stole a few headlines at Sydney Olympic Park this week, but Emerson Jones\u2019 mum deserves a few, too. She\u2019s 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.<\/div>\n
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It can\u2019t 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\u2019 case, she doesn\u2019t have to emerge from her mother\u2019s shadow because she doesn\u2019t really know how big it is.<\/div>\n
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\u201cMum was one of the toughest in her sport mentally, but I never watch her things,\u201d she says. \u201cShe\u2019s just mum to me. It\u2019s not like, \u2018she did this, she did that, and I should be a lot more like her\u2019. I just haven\u2019t really watched her stuff, no.\u201d<\/div>\n
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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?<\/div>\n
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Now, the challenge is stepping onto the full-time women\u2019s circuit after achieving the world\u2019s No.1 junior ranking last year. She was the first Australian to achieve the milestone since Jelena Dokic.<\/div>\n
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\u201cStill to this day, it gives me confidence because no one can take that away from you,\u201d Jones says.<\/div>\n
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Inevitably, people want to label Jones as the next Ash Barty. Barty says she\u2019s the first Emerson Jones, albeit one still trying to figure out the backhand slice which bamboozled so many of the world\u2019s best for many years.<\/div>\n
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\u201cBefore Wimbledon last year she hit with me on the grass and gave me a few tips,\u201d Jones says. \u201cShe hit some slices \u2026 I didn\u2019t think she had touched a racquet for a bit and she came out hitting slice winners against me. It was insane.<\/div>\n
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\u201cI get a lot of questions about people comparing me to Ash. It\u2019s difficult to do what Ash has done. She\u2019s definitely one of a kind in what she\u2019s done. I look up to her very much, but I just want to focus on what I\u2019m doing.\u201d<\/div>\n
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Jones\u2019 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.<\/div>\n
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It would be a foolish person to think it will be the same story again in 2026, with Jones\u2019 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. \u201cThat\u2019s definitely what takes me away from tennis and it connects us as a family,\u201d Jones says.<\/div>\n
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There\u2019s not much the family can\u2019t do, and that includes teaching the mental side of sport. Which is why the next time Jones looks like she\u2019s fallen asleep on her racquet, it might just be all part of the plan.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Emerson Jones rests her racquet on the floor, then her head on the racquet, finally a towel on her head. She\u2019s 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?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6323,"featured_media":27541,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27540","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/nsw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27540","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/nsw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/nsw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/nsw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6323"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/nsw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27540"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/nsw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27540\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/nsw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27541"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/nsw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27540"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/nsw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27540"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/nsw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27540"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}