{"id":94683,"date":"2025-08-26T19:50:07","date_gmt":"2025-08-26T19:50:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/94683\/"},"modified":"2025-08-26T19:50:07","modified_gmt":"2025-08-26T19:50:07","slug":"british-us-open-star-missing-two-fingers-and-three-toes-and-collapsed-on-court","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/94683\/","title":{"rendered":"British US Open star missing two fingers and three toes and collapsed on court"},"content":{"rendered":"

Fran Jones, 24, has made it through to the main draw in New York for the first time\"FranFran Jones previously collapsed on court as concerned fans watched on<\/p>\n

British tennis star Fran Jones will make her main draw debut at the US Open this evening as she takes on Eva Lys of Germany in the first round of the women’s singles.<\/p>\n

The 24-year-old entered qualifying as top seed for this year’s competition in New York, and recorded straight set wins over three opponents – Vikt\u00f3ria Hrun\u010d\u00e1kov\u00e1, Ekaterine Gorgodze and Arianne Hartonoto – to make it through to the main draw of the Grand Slam event for the first time.<\/p>\n

Victory over Lys would see Jones record her best ever major finish, having also never made it past the first round at Wimbledon or the Australian Open, or past qualifying at the French Open.<\/p>\n

Regardless of what happens in tonight’s opening round match, however, Jones has plenty to feel proud about having well and truly defied the odds to make it to where she is today.<\/p>\n

Due to a rare medical condition called Ectrodactyly Ectodermal Dysplasia Syndrome, she was born with just three fingers and one thumb on each hand, while she is also missing three toes.<\/p>\n

The condition led doctors to tell her at the age of eight that she would never achieve her dream of becoming a professional tennis player, but she has made it to the highest level after undergoing several surgeries.<\/p>\n

Of course, missing fingers and toes have presented some added complexities to Jones’ game, from gripping her racket to achieving the right balance off the ground.<\/p>\n

\"JonesJones is through to the main draw of the US Open for the first time<\/p>\n

But despite facing these challenges, the British star has never let her condition get the better of her, telling the Lawn Tennis Association in 2022<\/a>: \u201cIt didn\u2019t change anything for me, it didn\u2019t change my approach. I just had, like any kid, things that I was dealing with\u2026and I dealt with it.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I was about seven or eight, I started to play a little bit more. Having gone through the operations I was going through in that moment, and prior to that, we did go to my doctor and say \u2018Hey, she\u2019s actually starting to pick this up on quite a consistent level\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was when I was limited by someone, or there was an attempt to limit me, and that just pushed me even further to commit,” she added. \u201cI thought \u2018someone\u2019s just telling me I can\u2019t do something, and I actually think I can\u2026 I knew I had a mentality where I was going to pick at every little detail, and make sure every corner was covered.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even after making it as a professional, however, Jones – who achieved a career-high singles ranking of 84th in the world last month – has not had the easiest of journeys, having also faced an alarming health scare on court in Colombia earlier this year.<\/p>\n

In April, the British number four was in the final set of her first round Colsanitas Cup match with Argentina’s Julia Riera when she went to serve but collapsed to the ground holding her head.<\/p>\n

She was treated on the court by medics before eventually being helped into a wheelchair and taken off court, retiring from the match as she underwent further assessment.<\/p>\n

Jones later attributed the collapse to not acclimatising to the high-altitude conditions in Bogota, having had a practice session called off due to rain.<\/p>\n

In a post on Instagram, she explained: “Aside from my low-level pre match warm up, my first exposure to the limited oxygen levels at a high intensity was my match.<\/p>\n

“As the match went on, I worked hard to give myself the opportunity to stay competitive while trying to get used to the conditions but progressively struggled.<\/p>\n

“Overnight we conducted multiple studies and it seems my heart worked a little too hard on the day but thankfully no longer term impact.”<\/p>\n

Having now made a full recovery, Jones has been tipped by some to one day follow in the footsteps of her close friend Emma Raducanu, who made history with her stunning US Open win in 2021.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat she did I don’t think will ever be repeated but I’ll be happy to fall into some of those footsteps for sure,\u201d said Jones as she discussed her friendship with the British No.1 after making it through to the main draw.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe said good luck before the match and texted her congratulations just now. We speak every day. It’s not about tennis necessarily. If there’s something that’s bothering me or bothering her then we’ll discuss it.<\/p>\n

“We have a really open relationship in that sense. But yeah, we don’t really talk about tennis and I think that’s why it worked.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Fran Jones, 24, has made it through to the main draw in New York for the first timeFran…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":94684,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[101,118,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-94683","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\/94683","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=94683"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94683\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/94684"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=94683"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=94683"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=94683"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}