In my last article I made a mistake: I wrote the piece when the third round of the Grade 1 in Traralgon has been played and, up to then, nothing really noticeable happened. The following day I noticed that Musetti, the first boys’ seed, has lost; thus, I accordingly updated the relevant part of the article. Though, I forgot to check what happened in the girls’ event and missed that the second seeded girl, the Chinese Zheng, has been defeated by Talia Gibson, an Australian wildcard. I realised today of this mistake and it was good: it gave me the chance to spot this girl who may be a very, very interesting prospect.
Though, before going into further details about Talia’s performances, I shortly summarise what happened up to now in Traralgon tournament. As per the girls’ event, Clara Tauson, the first seed, is the favourite to win: after a bit of a tricky first round, in which she has beaten by 6-4 7-5 Veronika Pepeliaeva, Clara has won all the following rounds with ease, having lost only 16 games in 3 matches. She will play the semi-final against Emma Raducanu, who dropped only one set in the whole tournament, in favour of Kanapatskaya. The other semi-final will be played between the 4th seed, the Canadian Fernandez, and the French Mansouri: the former is surely the favourite to reach Tauson in the final.
As per the boys’ event, the composition of the semi-final is Liam Draxl vs. Zane Khan and Jiri Lehecka vs. Cannon Kingsley. I’ve never seen playing any of these guys, so any prediction would be useless (as you know, I basically do not follow boys’ tennis).
Let’s now return to the main topic of this article, i.e. is the young Aussie girl, Talia Gibson.
Born in 2004, this girl is, of course, very young; she currently ranks over the 1100 spot in the junior ITF. Talia started to compete on the ITF junior only in last July and results were not too bad, but not even glorious: actually, the first try was the best one, as she reached the quarter finals in a grade 4, whilst in the following attempts she stopped in the first or second round of other Grades 4 or 5. Of course, at the time she played those tournament, the girl had just turned 14 so the above losses are not significant in any way.
Though, 2019 started with a great and unexpected boom by this young girl. Talia was granted a wild card for the main draw of the Traralgon tournament: in the first round she has beaten in three sets Kylie Collins, an American player I do not know, but who is anyway two years older than Talia and ranks in 71 spot: not exactly the simplest match to win for a 14 year old rookie. In the following round Talia has made even better, having beaten Sada Nahimana, current n. 31 of the ranking: Nahimana is an experienced girl who has overcome players as Mandlik and Biagianti in her junior career. But Talia’s little “miracle” was in the third round, in which she has beaten by 6-3 6-4 the second seed Zheng, holder of the 9th spot in the ITF ranking, winner of 2018 Eddie Herr and finalist, immediately after, in the Orange bowl: in such occasion Zheng even managed to steal a set to “Her Majesty” Cori Gauff. Currently, the gap in ranking between Zheng and Talia is of 1140 spots: this data can sum up the dimension of Talila’s exploit. Eventually, the young Aussie lost in the quarter finals, being defeated by Jasmine Mansouri, a girl holding a best ranking on ITF Junior of 30 and who already matured some experience on the pro-tour. Nevertheless, once again Talia gave a good fight, as the final result was 6-4 7-5 in favour of the French.
I made a little research on google on Talia Gibson but I find virtually nothing: just a short interview from which one could infer that she has obtained good results at junior national level (as one may assume); I tried to find a pic of her for the purposes of this article and I found only one, that I wasn’t sure I could use;[1] of course, I have no clue on how she plays. Anyhow, four results in a row as the above ones indicate or that Talia has experienced the best and most lucky week in her life or that she is indeed a girl who will become a prominent junior player in short time.
I hope she will be awarded a wild card also for the Australian Open, so that we can check how young Talia will be able to handle the excitement of her recent huge results. Anyhow, I will keep an eye on her throughout the season.
[1] This is why I uploaded a pic of Clara Tauson, even if the piece is focused on Talia Gibson
