\u201cI feel like it\u2019s definitely one of the days I\u2019ll remember forever, playing in my home town in front of all my friends. I still can\u2019t believe it honestly.\u201d<\/p>\n
Maddison Inglis proved her potential on a dream day at Perth Arena.<\/p>\n
The 19-year-old Perth local only found out at 8.30am Tuesday 2 January she\u2019d be in Mastercard Hopman Cup action, after Naomi Osaka was forced to withdraw from her singles match for Japan with illness.<\/p>\n
Inglis defied her ranking of No.771 to present powerful American CoCo Vandeweghe a stern test.<\/p>\n
The world No.10 required two attempts to serve out the opening set, as Inglis stepped inside the court with brave shot-making against the 2017 Australian Open semifinalist, before Vandeweghe closed out the 7-5 6-2 victory.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was lucky enough to hit with her the last few days so I could get used to her pace, and her serve,\u201d revealed the local charge. \u201cThat was pretty lucky because I wasn\u2019t shocked when I went out there.\u201d<\/p>\n
Having spent the past week practising and putting in the hard yards with world class players, Inglis is eager to incorporate facets of their tennis into her own game.<\/p>\n
\u201cI definitely like how CoCo plays, how she\u2019s so aggressive and her big serve. I use her serve to work on mine. It\u2019s good to get a few pointers from the players,\u201d added Inglis, stating a certain Roger has the shot she craves.<\/p>\n
\u201cProbably Federer\u2019s serve. I think that everyone in here can say that. It\u2019s kind of surreal to be around a player like him.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want to be a pro so it\u2019s been a really inspiring week. I want to represent Australia one day. Not Japan,\u201d joked the Aussie teenager, who prevailed in the mixed doubles alongside Yuichi Sugita, in a three-sets triumph over player-coach combination in Vandeweghe-Pat Cash. \u201cEven though it was really fun here.\u201d<\/p>\n
It was rather apt that Perth Arena hosted such an occasion for Inglis: \u201cI\u2019ve come to Hopman Cup since I was about 10 years old,\u201d explained Inglis. \u201cMum couldn\u2019t be here today. She\u2019s in Melbourne with the rest of the family watching my brother in a motorsport race, so she was a bit upset, but she watched on an app at the airport.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s been a steady progression for the Perth prospect ever since she won the 2016 Australian Open wildcard play-off and now Inglis wants to utilise this Hopman Cup experience as another Launchpad.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s amazing. It\u2019s such a good week. I\u2019m so lucky to be involved and lucky that tournament director Paul (Kilderry) chose me,\u201d added the world No.771. \u201cDefinitely not a week to take for granted.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had a bit of a weird year last year,\u201d continued Inglis. \u201cI had about seven months off. This year I\u2019m just going to play tournaments while I\u2019m fit, healthy, young and while I can to build up my ranking and see where it takes me.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Written by Alex Sharp<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u201cI feel like it\u2019s definitely one of the days I\u2019ll remember forever, playing in my home town in front of all my friends. I still can\u2019t believe it honestly.\u201d Maddison Inglis proved her potential on a dream day at Perth Arena. The 19-year-old Perth local only found out at 8.30am Tuesday 2 January she\u2019d be […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6100,"featured_media":12520,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12519","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\/12519","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\/6100"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12519"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12519\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12520"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12519"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12519"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12519"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}