Yorkshire's Fran Jones seeing the light of progress at the French Open after plunging into 'dark places'
Fran Jones is stood on the terrace of her hotel room overlooking Paris, not for one minute taking for granted how lucky she is and yet equally conscious of how hard she has had to work every single day to be in that position.
On Sunday she will play in the opening round of the ladies singles at Roland Garros as a direct entrant into the main draw of the French Open for the first time.
A year ago, the 25-year-old from Bradford lost in the final round of qualifying, “the biggest heartbreak of last year,” she says, so in linear terms, going straight into the draw as a result of being inside the world’s top 100 is a sign of progress.
But tennis, and particularly Jones, do not do linear. That progress has come with many ups and downs.
The ups include a run to the quarter-finals of a tournament in Auckland on the eve of January’s Australian Open, and a victory over Venus Williams – past her best but an idol of Jones – in Miami.
The downs have plunged her so deep she was forced to do a bit of soul-searching.
“It’s no secret that I’ve had a really tough year with some challenges,” she says.
“It’s put me in some dark places the last couple of months, just pure frustration and feeling useless that I can’t make steps forward, that I have to sit there watching my ranking plummet without being able to affect it myself or be in the shape to continue achieving what I felt I was ready to achieve.
“It’s been very frustrating but I’ve really tried hard in the last month just to start afresh.”
She has chosen the people around her carefully, two coaches and two physios who know when to push her, when to show patience.
“I have a team who really care for me,” Jones tells The Yorkshire Post. “We’re a team built on empathy, trust and honesty, so there’s been a lot of tough conversations for us all the last couple of months, but they’re conversations I need.
“Because I can give myself too much positive reinforcement, when I should be taking a step back and understanding the reality of where I’m at and giving myself the time and the patience to rebuild.”
Tennis has been all Jones has known since the age of six when she first picked up a racquet at Heaton Tennis Club.
By the age of 10, her coach in Bradford conceded he had taken her as far as he could and that she was good enough to pursue the sport in one of the top European academies. After a thorough search they settled on one near Barcelona.
“I remember very vividly the morning we left at 5.30am for Manchester Airport, from the house we lived in in Oxenhope,” continues Jones.
“It didn’t register at the time but I never went back to that family home. We had to rent our home to afford the move, and we spent Christmas at my aunt’s in Mirfield. It really was a monumental moment in my life to see the gate close on the old house and never open again.”
She has managed to make it this far with ambitions to go even further despite being born with just three fingers and a thumb on each hand and only seven toes due to a rare genetic condition. Does that mean she has to work harder than her peers just to compete?
“I’ve had fitness coaches tell me I need to be 30 per cent stronger than the rest of the players on tour to compensate and ensure there’s less mechanical stress on my body,” Jones replies.
“I have to find those extra levels mentally to push through some of the physical challenges I’ve faced, but I think everyone has barriers they have to overcome, so I don’t see it as any more or less of a challenge.”
She has certainly made a brave go of it, and if her progress is not that of a shooting star like Emma Raducanu’s, or as trophy-laden as Katie Boulter’s, it is tracking upwards.
On Sunday, Brazilian Beatrice Haddad Maia stands in the way of her achieving a first victory in the main draw of a grand slam. It will be her seventh attempt.
“She’s played the semi-finals here, she’s been in the top 10, so she’s experienced but she’s not in her best form right now, and hopefully I can try to take advantage of that,” says Jones. “I just need to get back into that rhythm and momentum. It’ll take one week and a good couple of matches and I’ll find my feet again.”
One feels Jones deserves a break and a run of good form, no matter how good the view from her hotel room. “Someone could say ‘well you’re looking out from a terrace over Paris’, but everything is relative,” she concludes. “There’s a lot going off in the world and it is a privilege to play tennis but at the same time, it’s what you live for and every decision you make all comes back to how does it affect my career?”