{"id":748154,"date":"2026-06-20T04:45:16","date_gmt":"2026-06-20T04:45:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/748154\/"},"modified":"2026-06-20T04:45:16","modified_gmt":"2026-06-20T04:45:16","slug":"wimbledon-stars-comeback-rolls-on-at-aussies-expense","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/748154\/","title":{"rendered":"Wimbledon star’s comeback rolls on at Aussie’s expense"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rising Australian star Talia Gibson has been defeated in her first grass-court quarter-final in Nottingham, her encouraging progress halted by a former Wimbledon star on the comeback trail.<\/p>\n

Two-time grand slam finalist Karolina Pliskova, who’s trying to battle back to her best at the age of 34 after a two-year fight to overcome debilitating injury, showed glimpses of her old dominant self as she beat the Perth prospect 7-5 6-4 in just over an hour-and-a-half on Friday (Saturday AEST).<\/p>\n

It propelled the Czech, who lost the 2021 Wimbledon final to Ash Barty, into her first semi-final at any WTA event since the same Nottingham event two years ago following the ankle injury she suffered when playing Jasmine Paolini at the 2024 US Open.<\/p>\n

\"Gibson\"<\/p>\n

Talia Gibson’s first grass-court quarter-final didn’t go the way she had hoped in Nottingham. (Morgan Hancock\/AAP PHOTOS)<\/p>\n

Since then, it’s been a long struggle for the two-time slam finalist and former world No.1 as she’s had to learn how to walk again following two surgeries on her left ankle.<\/p>\n

But having started the year back at No.1057 in the world, Pliskova has bounced back so impressively that, now at No.87, she’ll move up into at least the top-80 again next week with Wimbledon looming again.<\/p>\n

Asked if she felt she could be a dark horse again at her favourite grass-court slam, Pliskova shrugged earlier this week: “Of course. Depending on the draw — you can have some ugly players to face on grass. I feel like if I can pass first round, second round, then I can be dangerous.”<\/p>\n

For 22-year-old Gibson, who made such a dramatic breakthrough in the US hard-court swing by reaching the quarter-finals at Indian Wells and the last-16 in Miami, reaching the quarters at the pre-Wimbledon event was another encouraging step on her road to the top.<\/p>\n

But the world No.66 will have been frustrated by her capitulation in the 11th game of the first set when a couple of double faults helped gift the key break to the Czech. In all, Gibson served eight doubles.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, in another pre-Wimbledon event at the Berlin Open, Aryna Sabalenka, who’s trying to put her French Open disappointment behind her, staged a memorable comeback from a set and 4-0 down to defeat Czech youngster Nikola Bartunkova 2-6 7-6 (7-2) 6-4 in the quarters.<\/p>\n

In the semi-finals, she will take on third seed Jessica Pegula, who beat her close friend Madison Keys 7-6 (7-5) 7-6 (10-8).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rising Australian star Talia Gibson has been defeated in her first grass-court quarter-final in Nottingham, her encouraging progress…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":748155,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[565],"tags":[64,63,188154,49081,99748,92613,85,52477,747,749],"class_list":["post-748154","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-comeback-trail","tag-jasmine-paolini","tag-karolina-pliskova","tag-nottingham","tag-sports","tag-talia-gibson","tag-tennis","tag-wimbledon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/748154","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=748154"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/748154\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/748155"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=748154"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=748154"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=748154"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}