Emerson Jones out of Australian Open as Elena Rybakina shows no mercy to 16-year-old
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Highly-touted teenager Emerson Jones was given a rude initiation in the first round of the Australian Open as sixth-seed Elena Rybakina dominated their contest on Margaret Court Arena to win 6-1, 6-1 in just 53 minutes. The 16-year-old wildcard held serve early in both sets, but couldn’t stay in touch with her powerful Khazakh opponent, who won almost twice as many points as Jones and reeled off 11 aces.
Four of them came consecutively in a barrage during the final game of the first set, where the Australian had streaked to a 0-40 advantage and was hoping to reverse the momentum which to that point had been mostly one way. When it was suggested by on-court interviewer Alicia Molik afterwards that the sequence was rough on a 16-year-old, Rybakina laughed it off. “I lost my concentration and focus, so I was pretty quick to be 0-40, and then I knew that I needed to step up and serve,” she said.
Jones had become the first Australian since Jelena Dokic in 1998 to be the world’s top junior, and shocked world No 37 Xinyu Wang in Adelaide in the lead-up. But the Queenslander was clearly out-matched against Rybakina, the 2022 Wimbledon champion and 2023 Australian Open finalist. The world No 7 said afterwards Jones had a bright future, and she just needed to “be patient and work hard”.
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