{"id":21472,"date":"2026-01-16T10:13:30","date_gmt":"2026-01-16T02:13:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/?p=21472"},"modified":"2026-01-16T10:13:46","modified_gmt":"2026-01-16T02:13:46","slug":"preston-stuns-raducanu-to-reach-maiden-wta-semifinal-in-hobart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/news\/2026\/01\/16\/preston-stuns-raducanu-to-reach-maiden-wta-semifinal-in-hobart","title":{"rendered":"Preston stuns Raducanu to reach maiden WTA semifinal in Hobart"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>Young Australian Taylah Preston has claimed the biggest win of her career at the Hobart International, downing Great Britian\u2019s Emma Raduanu 6-2 6-4 to reach a maiden WTA-level semifinal.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The 20-year-old, who entered the tournament as a 204th-ranked wildcard, added to a breakthrough week that earlier included wins over Jessica Bouzas Maneriro (ranked world No.40) and Rebecca Sramkova (No.72).<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI don\u2019t really know what to say, I\u2019m just really happy to be through to the next round and get to play here again in front of everyone,\u201d said an emotional Preston, after her straight-sets win over Raducanu, who is the 2021 US Open champion.<\/p>\n<p>In a composed performance, Preston controlled the rallies and capitalised on key moments to close out the match in 88 minutes and set a semifinal with either American Iva Jovic or Poland\u2019s Magda Linette.<\/p>\n<p>The West Australian was also required to adapt to Hobart\u2019s challenging conditions, after the match was temporarily suspended due to rain.<\/p>\n<p>In a life-changing month, Preston will also contest the Australian Open as a wildcard entrant, drawing China\u2019s Zhang Shuai in the first round.<\/p>\n<p>With her momentum building in Hobart, Preston will be one to watch as she makes her second main-draw appearance at her home Grand Slam, following her 2024 debut.<\/p>\n\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Young Australian Taylah Preston has claimed the biggest win of her career at the Hobart International, downing Great Britian\u2019s Emma Raduanu 6-2 6-4 to reach a maiden WTA-level semifinal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6359,"featured_media":21473,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21472","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\/21472","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\/6359"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21472"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21472\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21473"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21472"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21472"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21472"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}