Four more of Australians have qualified for Wimbledon, meaning 17 players will feature in the main draw at next week’s championships – the biggest Aussie contingent for 30 years.
While Priscilla Hon and Talia Gibson both saved match points in final qualifying to earn their dream Wimbledon dates and Alex Bolt and James McCabe also booked their spots at windy Roehampton, teenage star Maya Joint sealed the stellar day by reaching the Eastbourne International semi-final.
The only anti-climax was 16-year-old Emerson Jones missing out in her bold bid to become the youngest Australian player since Ash Barty to make the singles main draw at Wimbledon as she succumbed in her final-round qualifier.
The results ensured there will be seven women and 10 men in Friday’s draw, matching the 17 Australians at the 1995 championships.
The evergreen Bolt, a bit of a grass-court specialist having learned to play on the courts at his Murray Bridge home in South Australia, started the fun by beating the rain and one of the game’s rising young stars, Spaniard Martin Landaluce, 6-1, 6-2, 6-4.
It ensured he reached back-to-back main draws at Wimbledon and a fourth in all. “It’s massive. I guess there’s no secret that I’m closer to the end of my career than the start and as long as I’m fit and healthy, I feel like I can keep going,” he said.
At the other end of the age scale, 21-year-old Gibson found herself 3-5, 30-40 down in the final set against Argentine 10th qualifying seed Solana Sierra before saving the match point and reeling off the next four games to prevail 6-4, 3-6, 7-5.
That was as nothing, though, compared to Brisbane stalwart Hon, who had to save five match points on her serve at a set and 5-6 down against another of the game’s new stars, Canadian Victoria Mboko, before she escaped to win the tiebreak and then powered past the deflated youngster in the decider.
It was Hon’s seventh time trying to qualify for Wimbledon and the 27-year-old was rewarded for her nous, staying more patient than her frustrated opponent as the wind swirled.
The multi-talented 21-year-old McCabe, a former top junior swimmer and accomplished flautist, joined Hon and Gibson as Wimbledon debutants with his doughty 4-6, 6-3, 7-6 (7-5), 7-6 (9-7) victory over Chile’s Marcelo Tomas Barrios Vera.
But the 16-year-old Gold Coast star Jones, the world’s No 1 junior, couldn’t join the party, beaten by Frenchwoman Diane Parry 6-2, 6-2, while Li Tu also missed out on the men’s main draw, losing to crafty French veteran Adrian Mannarino 3-6, 6-3, 6-4, 6-4.
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Jones, who was seeking to become the youngest Australian since former Wimbledon champion Barty made it back in 2012, could not adapt to the blustery conditions as well as her much more experienced opponent Parry, a 22-year-old who reached the third round at SW19 in 2022 as a teen.
But she still has the chance to shoot for the junior title at Wimbledon where she reached the final last year.
Meanwhile, in the big final Wimbledon warm-up at the Eastbourne International, 19-year-old Joint continued her rise with a tough 6-4, 7-5 quarter-final victory over experienced Russian Anna Blinkova, reaching her third semi of her rookie season, all on different surfaces.
A grass-court novice, she is the first Australian to get this far in the traditional Wimbledon curtain-raiser for 14 years since Sam Stosur and she will face former French Open finalist Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova in the last four.
Elsewhere, at the Boodles event at Stoke Park, north of London, Australia’s top two men’s players sharpened up by taking on each other in the invitation event, with Alex de Minaur earning the bragging rights over Alexei Popyrin with a 6-3, 6-4 win.
