{"id":522894,"date":"2026-04-10T07:06:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-10T07:06:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/522894\/"},"modified":"2026-04-10T07:06:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-10T07:06:08","slug":"australias-talia-gibson-stunned-by-great-britain-teenager-mika-stojsavljevic-in-bjk-cup-opener-tennis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/522894\/","title":{"rendered":"Australia\u2019s Talia Gibson stunned by Great Britain teenager Mika Stojsavljevic in BJK Cup opener | Tennis"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Australia\u2019s quest to win a place in the Billie Jean King Cup finals is off to the worst possible start with spearhead Talia Gibson a shock loser to British teen Mika Stojsavljevic.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Gibson was expected to get the tie at Melbourne\u2019s John Cain Arena off to a flying start on Friday for the home side, but she fell 7-6 (7-4) 7-5 to the lowly-ranked 17-year-old.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">World No 56 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/sport\/2026\/apr\/06\/talia-gibson-australia-tennis-wta-rankings-rise-interview\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Gibson took over as Australia\u2019s No 1<\/a> following injury to Maya Joint and arrived at the tie in sparkling form.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">The 21-year-old had recently beaten five top 20-ranked players and rocketed to her career-high ranking.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">With the visitors missing their four best players, the Australians were hot favourites to advance to the Finals in China in September, but that was quickly dismissed by big-serving Stojsavljevic.<\/p>\n<p>Mika Stojsavljevic is overcome with emotion after beating Talia Gibson during the Billie Jean King Cup qualifier in Melbourne. Photograph: Daniel Pockett\/Getty Images for Billie Jean King Cup<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Also making her BJK debut, Gibson had a nervous start and went down a break before clawing her way back to level at 3-3.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">The pair went toe-to-toe through the first set but world No 275 Stojsavljevic steamed through the tiebreak, racing to a 4-0 lead on a backhand error by Gibson before closing it out 7-4.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">The young Brit carried that momentum into the second set, going ahead 5-2, before powerhouse Gibson found her touch and broke her twice to level at 5-5.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Stojsavljevic sent down three aces in her haul of 12 for the match to survive a marathon game, including five break points, and then broke Gibson again to wrap up the match.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Australia\u2019s world No 80 Kimberly Birrell will take on 173-ranked Harriet Dart in the second singles.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Dart will then partner Jodie Burrage in Saturday\u2019s live doubles match against experienced Australian duo Storm Hunter and Ellen Perez, with the reverse singles scheduled for later in the day.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Australia\u2019s quest to win a place in the Billie Jean King Cup finals is off to the worst&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":522895,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[101,118,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-522894","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-sports","9":"tag-tennis","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/522894","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=522894"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/522894\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/522895"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=522894"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=522894"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=522894"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}