{"id":419007,"date":"2026-01-20T16:18:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-20T16:18:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/419007\/"},"modified":"2026-01-20T16:18:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-20T16:18:10","slug":"maddison-inglis-wipes-away-tears-after-outlasting-best-friend-kim-birrell-in-three-hour-epic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/419007\/","title":{"rendered":"Maddison Inglis wipes away tears after outlasting best friend Kim Birrell in three-hour epic"},"content":{"rendered":"

An emotional Madison Inglis has wiped away tears after defeating close friend Kimberly Birrell in a three-set thriller.<\/p>\n

The pair, who have been best friends since they were children, shared a long embrace at the net.<\/p>\n

After taking a moment to compose herself, Inglish admitted that the win feels amazing but comes at the difficult expense of a friend.<\/p>\n

“It’s really hard to play such a good friend, you know,” she said during her on-court interview.<\/p>\n

“The last few days have been a bit stressful.<\/p>\n

“It’s so tough. It was an amazing match with Kim. <\/p>\n

“I absolutely adore her, so it was really hard to see her on the other side, but I’m stoked that I could play through those feelings and be in the second round.<\/p>\n

“It means the world.”<\/p>\n

\"Maddison<\/p>\n

Maddison Inglis overcomes both a three-hour marathon and the heartbreak of facing her best friend to secure a career-defining win over Kimberly Birrell.\u00a0Nine<\/p>\n

Inglis reflected on the mental battle of the three-hour marathon.<\/p>\n

“She’s honestly the queen of comebacks, so I knew I was gonna have to win it, and I couldn’t get it done in the second,” she said of Birrell’s reputation for never giving up.<\/p>\n

“I really did my best to just put it behind me and just remember that I was playing some really great tennis, and that I just had to trust myself and know that I can do it.<\/p>\n

“I got a bit lucky, it went my way today, and I’m really happy.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An emotional Madison Inglis has wiped away tears after defeating close friend Kimberly Birrell in a three-set thriller.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":419008,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[99,428],"class_list":{"0":"post-419007","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\/419007","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=419007"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/419007\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/419008"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=419007"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=419007"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=419007"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}