Australian Open 2024: Taylah Preston has overcome challenges to rise up the rankings after junior career with parallels to Ash Barty

After a junior career comparable to Ash Barty’s, Taylah Preston is ready to make an impact on the main tour, writes LINDA PEARCE.

There are high hopes for Taylah Preston. Picture: Brendan Radke

Taylah Preston was the second Australian female to achieve a top 10 world junior ranking. The first? Future Wimbledon, French and Australian Open champion Ash Barty.

When Preston last month claimed a third consecutive Australian Tennis Award as the nation’s best-performed girl — this one shared with gun 15-year-old Emerson Jones — she emulated the 2010-13 treble of Barty, who would eventually win four.

And at the 2019 WTA Future Stars event in Shenzhen, China, where she was mentored by Barty’s best mate Casey Dellacqua, 14-year-old Preston met one of her childhood idols and watched the then world No.1 practice up close.

“Obviously Ash is a very humble and just down-to-earth good person, and if I can do anything like what she did I’d be very happy,’’ says Preston, who will make her grand slam singles debut this month at Melbourne Park.

“So I think she’s a great role model to look up to and follow what she did, but also (I’m) creating my own journey and my own career.’’

Preston won the Female Junior Athlete of the Year award at the Newcombe Medal. Picture: Daniel Pockett/Getty Images for Tennis Australia

Barty’s retirement last March at the age of just 25, combined with knee injuries to senior pair Daria Saville and Ajla Tomljanovic, has left the host nation without a woman ranked higher than 34-year-old Arina Rodionova at 113th (the men, in contrast, boast eight in double-figures, headed by Alex de Minaur at No.12).

So, with 20-somethings such as Kim Birrell, Priscilla Hon and Destanee Aiava still seeking to fill the void, the emerging group below includes Liv Gadecki, Jones and Preston – the latter having slashed her ranking from 836th when she resumed from a back injury in April to 208th after peaking six spots higher and breaking into the national top 10.

The Perth right-hander won four ITF titles either side of her 18th birthday in October, rates her backhand as her best shot and her strengths as groundstrokes generally and her movement, aggression from the baseline and moving forward to the net.

Former Billie Jean King Cup captain and world No.8 Alicia Molik admits to being “blown away” by the 2023 progress of Preston, whom she hails as a “fighter” — and the teenager is not about to disagree.

“I’d like to think I am, yeah, definitely,’’ she says, having defeated fellow wildcard Melisa Ercan in the opening round of this week’s Canberra International for her first win of 2023.

“I’d like to think that even if I’m down in the match I’m never fully out of it. I’ll keep going until I’m actually done, like everyone shook hands and the match is over.’’

The reward: as the recipient of one of the first batch of wildcards distributed by Tennis Australia a month ago, Preston avoids grand slam qualifying and progresses straight to the Aus Open main draw, where the tennis equivalent of passing go means she will collect minimum prize money of $120,000.

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This was all supposed to be happening a year ago.

Preston had completed a successful season on the ITF junior circuit and earned a wildcard into qualifying at the WTA tournament in Adelaide, where she was warming up for her opening match.

Until.

“I just straight away couldn’t move; I just had to lay on the ground,’’ says Preston of aggravating the back issue she had first felt in November. Perhaps more agonisingly, rest was prescribed throughout January in what, for most Aussies, is a critical and lucrative part of the year.

“Yeah, the timing was awful; I think the timing of it made it all a lot worse,’’ she says. “It wasn’t a massive major injury, but the month it happened was one of the biggest months of the year for Aussies.

“So I still watched all of the tennis but it was definitely very very hard to watch, cos obviously I wanted to be there in Melbourne playing with everyone, and around it all.’’

The comeback began slowly; Preston resumed hitting in February for just 20 minutes on alternate days, before playing her first match in five months at a lowly US$15,000 ITF event in Egypt in April.

By then, her junior ranking had dipped to the point that it made more sense to start chipping away at senior level, where a 14-week trip to Europe after resuming from that five month break included a reset with coach Brad Dyer after each batch of tournaments to adjust goals as they went.

Preston’s final year of school also needed to be managed through distance education and the balance of travelling, competing and studying was sometimes hard to strike.

“It wasn’t easy, but I would use a lot of the time on the trains going country-to-country to do my schoolwork, or do it after training days,’’ she says.

“At the end of playing a match I really didn’t feel like doing schoolwork, so I would sort of just leave it, but I was really lucky that my teachers were super-flexible with me, so if it was due on Friday they’d give me til Sunday, so just a couple of extra days for me to be able to work on it so that I was still submitting good work.’’

Taylah Preston has always had her eyes on a tennis career. Picture: Daniel Pockett/Getty Images

There was plenty of learning occurring on the court, too, with a couple of ventures into WTA-level qualifying after a first Pro Tour singles title in Tunisia in May — beating four higher-ranked opponents en route — and then three more at home to finish the year, capped by the US$60,000 in Brisbane in November.

Eventually, naturally, the ambition is to win a major. “Everyone says it, but it is definitely a goal. Top three would be amazing as well, but we can’t predict the future, so just keep chipping away and see where it takes me.

“I’m pretty happy with where I am right now.’’

Top 200 is next, and imminent, then post-summer goals include playing some higher-level ITFs and lower-level WTA events during her first full season on the senior tour.

“I guess we’ll just have to see how the summer goes and where my ranking sits after that and then hopefully just sort of plan from there,’’ says Preston, who does not believe a relatively diminutive stature should not be too much of an impediment to her progress.

“Honestly I haven’t really thought about my height before. Especially in the women’s game, I don’t think it’s a massive factor as much as it is in the men’s.

“I mean, you look at Ash and she’s not huge, so I think in the women’s game it probably helps maybe a few per cent but I don’t think it’s a massive factor.’’

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The daughter of a boat builder and bookkeeper, Preston has always been “very very set” on making tennis her career.

Her first experience was at the age of four, at a multi-sports program run by tennis coaches that morphed into more formal lessons three years later. By eight, she started working with Dyer, who remains her coach a decade on.

At 13, Preston won her first ITF junior title; next came success at the 14/U nationals, then as one of two Australians at the Future Stars in China. All pre-Covid. Since, a highlight was the orange girl experience at the 2022 Billie Jean King Cup finals in Glasgow.

While Preston believes the strength at the pointy end of juniors has helped with her transition to open ranks, wildcards tend to help with everything, and a main draw treble that started at the low-key WTA tournament in the national capital will finish at Melbourne Park.

“I think it’s super important my first couple of tournaments to get my matches going, just to sort of start playing higher ranked players and setting myself up hopefully for a good AO,’’ she says, having booked a second round in Canberra against Japanese second seed Nao Hibino.

Growing up in Perth’s northern suburbs, Preston particularly admired Barty 2.0, Maria Sharapova and Caroline Wozniacki, with the 2018 champion suiting up for her first Australian Open since returning, two children later, from a 2020 retirement.

Indeed, Preston knows she could draw Wozniacki, titleholder Aryna Sabalenka, world No.1 Iga Swiatek or another big name on a stadium court, and is determined to be ready if the moment comes.

“I’ve definitely thought about it. It’s hard not to sort of think about situations like that, but at the same time I think that would be very very cool to be able to play one of those players on centre court in front of everyone,’’ she says.

“We don’t know what’s going to happen yet but it’s very exciting. I’m a little bit nervous but I think that’s normal. I just can’t wait to play.’’