{"id":11726,"date":"2016-12-14T09:23:06","date_gmt":"2016-12-14T01:23:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/?p=11726"},"modified":"2016-12-14T09:25:20","modified_gmt":"2016-12-14T01:25:20","slug":"jones-crowned-18u-boys-champion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/news\/2016\/12\/14\/jones-crowned-18u-boys-champion","title":{"rendered":"Jones Crowned 18\/U Boys Champion"},"content":{"rendered":"

West Australian wildcard Scott Jones saw off a spirited fightback from Kody Pearson to claim his first national title and a qualifying spot at the Australian Open<\/em><\/p>\n

Wildcard Scott Jones claimed his first national title and a place in the 2017 Australian Open qualifying draw by beating No.4 seed Kody Pearson 6-2 4-6 6-4 to become the Australian 18\/U boys\u2019 champion.<\/p>\n

The West Australian, whose 19th birthday falls during next month\u2019s qualifying draw for the Australian Open, flew back from his first semester at the University of Tennessee to play in Melbourne, beating five of the eight seeds in the draw en route to the title.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s going to be a bit of a dilemma,\u201d said Jones of the prospect of delaying his return to the United States to compete for a place at the Australian Open. \u201cI might miss the first couple of weeks of classes, but it\u2019s going to be an awesome experience.\u201d<\/p>\n

> View the boys\u2019 18\/u Australian Championships draw<\/a><\/p>\n

Jones, who said his first national title had been \u201ca long time coming,\u201d credited his time in Tennessee for pushing him\u00a0to a new level: \u201cEverything you need right there and it\u2019s been a great experience. I think for sure it helped today. That competitive environment isn\u2019t what I\u2019ve been used to and I think it\u2019s helped my game a lot.\u201d<\/p>\n

On a chilly, overcast morning at Melbourne Park 18-year-old Jones raced out to a 5-0 lead before Pearson found a foothold in the match, fighting back in the second, saving a set point in the sixth game as he began imposing his aggressive game now that his flat ground strokes had found their range.<\/p>\n

Midway through the final set Pearson turned his ankle, prompting a 10-minute delay for treatment. The New South Wales native did his best to outgun his opponent in the closing stages, but with Davis Cup captain Lleyton Hewitt watching from the wings Jones snatched the critical break before serving out to love, sealing victory in two and a half hours.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe lifted his game \u2013 he started playing really aggressive, really good tennis,\u201d Jones said of Pearson\u2019s second-set fightback. \u201cI started to get a little bit passive and he started to control the points a bit more, so I had to lift my court position forward and keep playing my game.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Pearson, who had targeted the semi-finals before the tournament, there is the consolation that his run to the final boosts his case for wildcards into Australian Pro Tour tournaments in 2017.<\/p>\n

For more information visit the December Showdown tournament page.<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

West Australian wildcard Scott Jones saw off a spirited fightback from Kody Pearson to claim his first national title and a qualifying spot at the Australian Open Wildcard Scott Jones claimed his first national title and a place in the 2017 Australian Open qualifying draw by beating No.4 seed Kody Pearson 6-2 4-6 6-4 to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5812,"featured_media":11727,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11726","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11726","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5812"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11726"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11726\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11727"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11726"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11726"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11726"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}