Jones, 15, becomes youngest Aussie girl since Barty to win J500 title
Emerson Jones is the youngest girl from Australia to win a J500 title since former world No. 1 and three-time Grand Slam champion Ashleigh Barty following her victory at the weekend's Osaka Mayor’s Cup.
Topping the podium in Osaka is a significant moment for Jones, who only turned 15 in July, as J500 events are just one rung below a Junior Grand Slam and offer significant ranking points, prestige and glamour to the winners.
The teenager was in extremely clinical form all week, winning all six of her matches, including the final against Kristiana Sidorova which she claimed 7-6 (5) 7-5, without dropping a set.
Jones has most certainly made her presence felt on the ITF World Tennis Tour Juniors this season, with this her third title of the campaign and second in as many weeks after she conquered all before her at J300 Wanju. She has risen to a career-high No. 10 in the ITF World Tennis Tour girls' rankings as a result.
Following in the footsteps of Barty can be no bad thing for an aspiring player as she looks to establish herself at the top end of international junior tennis and advance along the player pathway.
Barty was about a month younger than Jones, who competed for Australia at the 2022 Billie Jean King Cup Juniors Finals and will do so again at the 2023 edition, when she won the girls’ title at the 2011 Junior Championships, Wimbledon (at the time Junior Grand Slams had the same status as J500s or Grade As, as they were known then).
However, this is somewhat short of the overall record for the youngest winner of a J500, which is held by Switzerland’s Martina Hingis, who was aged 12 years, 8 months when she won the Roland Garros Junior Championships in 1994.
In the boys’ event at J500 Osaka, meanwhile, Austria’s Joel Schwaerzler warmed up for this week’s ITF World Tennis Tour Junior Finals in Chengdu by claiming the biggest singles title of his fledgling career.
Schwaerzler required three sets to dispatch China’s Tianhui Zhang in the quarter-finals and Rei Sakamoto of Japan in the semis, before overpowering Norway’s Nicolai Budkov Kjaer, 7-6(6) 7-5, in the final.
Winning the Osaka Mayor’s Cup handed the 17-year-old his second singles title of the season, having triumphed at J300 Repentigny last month, and sees him rise to No. 7 in the ITF World Tennis Tour boys' rankings.
The left-hander, who is coached by former world No. 8 Jurgen Melzer, will now head to the Sichuan International Tennis Centre in Chengdu to compete as one of the world’s top eight boys. Further glory may well await.
The Osaka Mayor’s Cup is the fifth of seven J500 events on the ITF World Tennis Tour Juniors during a packed 2023 calendar. The next takes place in Merida, Mexico from 20-26 November.