{"id":415591,"date":"2026-01-18T21:10:12","date_gmt":"2026-01-18T21:10:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/415591\/"},"modified":"2026-01-18T21:10:12","modified_gmt":"2026-01-18T21:10:12","slug":"australian-open-2026-francesca-jones-was-very-serious-about-retiring-before-enjoying-best-season-of-career","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/415591\/","title":{"rendered":"Australian Open 2026: Francesca Jones was ‘very serious’ about retiring before enjoying best season of career"},"content":{"rendered":"

In a parallel universe, Francesca Jones might now be sitting at home preparing applications for university courses.<\/p>\n

Instead, the 25-year-old Briton is preparing for the Australian Open after a life-changing season that has pumped new energy into her tennis career.<\/p>\n

Jones, who has a rare genetic condition which means she plays with a modified grip, has defied the odds to compete among the elite.<\/p>\n

The world number 71 was born with Ectrodactyly Ectodermal Dysplasia (EEC), leaving her with three fingers and a thumb on each hand, three toes on her right foot and four toes on her left.<\/p>\n

Doctors told the Yorkshire-born player to forget about playing professionally and the physical challenges have continued during her career.<\/a><\/p>\n

After a difficult 2024 and finding herself outside the world’s top 150, Jones decided to retire if her results and ranking did not improve in the next season.<\/p>\n

Instead, she made 2025 the best year of her career and will hope to continue that progress when she takes on Polish qualifier Linda Klimovicova in her Melbourne opener on Monday.<\/p>\n

“I was very serious [about retiring]. It was a case of going all out for one more year,” said Jones, who has received direct entry into a Grand Slam for the first time.<\/p>\n

“If I would have been [ranked] 101, I wasn’t going to quit. But it was a feeling that I had.<\/p>\n

“It was smaller objectives that, if I completed those, would have led to me being in the top 100.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In a parallel universe, Francesca Jones might now be sitting at home preparing applications for university courses. Instead,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":415592,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[99,428],"class_list":{"0":"post-415591","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-sports","9":"tag-tennis"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/415591","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=415591"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/415591\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/415592"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=415591"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=415591"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=415591"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}