{"id":9464,"date":"2026-01-05T09:51:32","date_gmt":"2026-01-05T09:51:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/?p=9464"},"modified":"2026-01-05T09:51:32","modified_gmt":"2026-01-05T09:51:32","slug":"auckland-classic-francesca-jones-beats-emma-navarro-for-biggest-win-of-her-career","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/?p=9464","title":{"rendered":"Auckland Classic: Francesca Jones beats Emma Navarro for biggest win of her career"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The performance was a clear sign that Jones has the game &#8211; and belief &#8211; to build on the best season of her career in 2025.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Cracking the world&#8217;s top 100 last year was rich reward for a player who has continued to persevere, despite being hampered by a series of physical issues related to a rare genetic condition.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Jones was born with Ectrodactyly Ectodermal Dysplasia (EEC), which means she has three fingers and a thumb on each hand, three toes on her right foot and four toes on her left.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Doctors told the Yorkshire-born player to forget about playing tennis professionally &#8211; but she has continued to beat the odds.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Last season, Jones thought about retiring if she did not meet her goals. Instead, she enjoyed the most productive season of her career so far.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Jones won the biggest title of her career at a WTA 125 event &#8211; the rung below the main tour &#8211; in July, then earned a second triumph at that level to move into the top 100.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">In August, she secured a maiden main draw appearance at the US Open by coming through three rounds of qualifying as the top seed.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Now Jones is on the cusp of the world&#8217;s top 70 for the first time after beating Navarro and will rise higher if she beats Austria&#8217;s Sinja Kraus, ranked 108th, in the ASB Classic second round.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/sport\/tennis\/articles\/czdq4vj6l23o?at_medium=RSS&#038;at_campaign=rss\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The performance was a clear si&hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9465,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[251],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9464"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9464"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9464\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9465"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9464"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9464"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9464"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}