{"id":21461,"date":"2026-01-13T11:51:15","date_gmt":"2026-01-13T03:51:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/?p=21461"},"modified":"2026-01-13T11:54:20","modified_gmt":"2026-01-13T03:54:20","slug":"hobart-international-taylah-preston-powers-to-big-win","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/news\/2026\/01\/13\/hobart-international-taylah-preston-powers-to-big-win","title":{"rendered":"Hobart International: Taylah Preston powers to big win"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n

Taylah Preston capitalised superbly on her Hobart International wildcard, with a comprehensive upset of top-50 ranked Jessica Bouzas Maneiro.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Young Australian Taylah Preston has pulled off the biggest victory of her burgeoning career in the opening round of the Hobart International.<\/p>\n

The 20-year-old wildcard, ranked 205 in the world, outpowered 40th-ranked Spanish No.5 seed Jessica Bouzas Maneiro 6-4 7-6(4) in 88 minutes on Monday.<\/p>\n

It was the best win rankings-wise of Preston’s career, bettering a three-set result over Poland’s then world No.42 Magdalena Frech at the San Diego Open in 2024.<\/p>\n

Preston raced to a 4-1 lead in the firs set after just 15 minutes and then went to 5-2 in the second.\u00a0<\/p>\n

She was unable to serve out the match and lost four games in row, but rallied to break Bouzas Maneiro to force a tiebreak, where she held her nerve.<\/p>\n

Preston, who will soon play her second Australian Open via a wildcard, was happy with how she overcame some anxious moments.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“I just started thinking – don’t worry about the score; every point, play it the same,” she said.<\/p>\n

“Don’t think about the fact you just lost four games in a row.<\/p>\n

“I’m lucky enough to have my family here this week. They were all super positive and just going, ‘You know what to do’.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“I looked to them a little bit, just more for that reassurance. But ultimately I had to try and trust myself, that I know what is best to do.”<\/p>\n

Preston, a former top-10 junior, had the better of her more experienced opponent from the baseline.<\/p>\n

She’ll face either Slovakia’s world No.71 Rebecca Sramkova or Frenchwoman Varvara Gracheva for a place in the quarter-finals.<\/p>\n

Preston couldn’t get past the qualification stage at the Brisbane International last week but managed to beat a player in the top 100 and push No.79 Zhang Shuai to three sets.<\/p>\n

“I’m really happy with how I’m playing and hitting the ball and at a level where I want to be,” she said.<\/p>\n

Preston, who hails from Western Australia, will be hoping to emulate the Hobart run of Australia’s top-ranked woman Maya Joint, who reached the semi-finals in 2025 to spark a breakout season.<\/p>\n

Monday grew even better for Preston, who teamed up with fellow Australian wildcard Talia Gibson for a come-from-behind success in the doubles.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Taylah Preston capitalised superbly on her Hobart International wildcard, with a comprehensive upset of top-50 ranked Jessica Bouzas Maneiro.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6414,"featured_media":21462,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21461","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\/21461","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\/6414"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21461"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21461\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21462"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21461"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21461"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21461"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}