Cabrera targets top 150 after ‘gritty’ Launceston win

The Townsville product looked to be cruising in Sunday’s final up 3-1 in the first set, before her Chinese rival Chengyiyi Yuan caught fire with seven straight games to take a one set lead and a 2-0 advantage in the second.

After winning the second set in a tie break, Cabrera raced to a 5-0 final set lead before taking it 6-2 to back up her win at last week’s Burnie International.

It’s the first time Cabrera has defended a title, the 12th ITF crown of her career, and the world no.273 is hellbent on building on a strong start to the year.

“I just set some mental challenges for myself the last two weeks,” she said.

“I put in an amazing pre season and played some really good ball at Aus Open. I just wanted to set a standard for myself, which I did the last two weeks.

“I love the feeling of competing and digging, and finding a way, because when tennis is over I don’t think I’ll be able to find that feeling. I’m just trying to embrace it.”

In case defending her title wasn’t motivation enough, Cabrera said she’d hold the Launceston Tennis Centre’s canteen to their offer of free toasties for life if she won the tournament again.

The 28-year-old was more serious talking about her goals for 2026.

“I would like to finish inside the top 150 this year, but to be honest I don’t want to focus on the ranking,” she said.

“I want to go match by match and keep the body healthy, keep mentally showing up and being consistent, because any week can be your week if you keep showing up.

“When I found out I was coming to these two, I really wanted to win Launceston again because I’ve never won a tournament back to back.

“Burnie was a bonus too but this is the one I really wanted, it’s pretty special.

“I was really exhausted after Burnie and this week has been so physical, but I’m so happy to win.”

Cabrera, who has a career high ranking of 119 in 2020, said she took a more aggressive approach when Yuan began to take control mid-match.

“I really found a way in the second set. I was trying to hit with a bit more depth and more variety,” she said.

“She likes to hit the ball quite flat and honestly I was trying to be mentally quite tough and gritty, because it’s been a big two weeks

“I was so exhausted and I really wanted to win today.”

The men’s decider was dominated by Chinese Taipei top seed Yu Hsou Hsu, the world no.227 toppling Japan’s Hiroki Moriya 6-2 6-3.

Cash blasts Tennis Australia as ‘Old Boys’ Club’

Tennis legend Pat Cash has branded Tennis Australia an “old boys’ club” and implored them to add “tennis acumen” to their new leadership regime.

The 1987 Wimbledon champion believes the country’s next champion will be tougher to find unless the sports’ experts have a voice, and feels the Australian Open is being prioritised too heavily over player development.

Cash, currently at the Launceston International as a part time coach for South Australian Li Tu, said while outgoing Tennis Australia boss and Australian Open boss Craig Tiley has done a “great job”, it’s a chance for a reset.

Tiley resigned after two decades in the dual roles to become CEO of the USA Tennis Association.

“But unfortunately the basic issue is we have an old boys club at Tennis Australia and it’s been there for way too long,” Cash said.

“Unfortunately we have nobody on the board of Tennis Australia who’s ever played tennis.

“When you’ve got all businessmen who have no experience in player development, I don’t believe we’re getting the opinions of the experts that are here in Australia.

“We’ve got a dozen of them who have coached or played in Davis Cup and are super experts, and yet businessmen get hired.

“We’ve got absolutely no tennis acumen in the board, or player development. There’s a new CEO and tournament director coming in, it needs to be someone involved in tennis.

“We had no wins, boys or girls at Wimbledon juniors, we had one round win at Australian Open which is the weakest junior grand slam, it’s a concern.”

Cash feels more focus should be placed on the grassroots of the sport to ensure the next Alex de Minaur or Ash Barty eventually arrives.

“We’re the only major tennis nation who doesn’t have any tennis players on the board. It clearly indicates what their priority is, to make money and you need to make money.

“You can’t have player development and these tournaments without money, but there’s got to be some middle ground somewhere.”

He added: “We need better coaching at the grassroots level. It’s almost horrifying what I see in coaching. Australia is isolated, we need some international people and a businessperson is not gong to be able to understand that.”

Cash believes there are plenty of tennis experts, including former players, in the country who can help Australia usher through the next generation.

“They (the board) are really nice people and well-meaning, but they need to get a panel of Australian tennis experts and say these are our candidates,” he said.

“There’s about a dozen I’d like and it would be ignorant for Tennis Australia not to listen to people who know.

“It’s time for a fresh pair of ears, and fresh ideas.”

Cash said he enjoyed coaching the likes of Tu who, at 29, is looking to make a surge up the rankings after recently taking several years off due to burnout.

“Li’s not young but you can see he’s improved so much just with the correct mentoring,” the 1987 Wimbledon champion said.

“It’s not my fulltime job, I’ll be doing eight to ten weeks with him over the next few months through to Wimbledon.

“He’s an incredibly fast learner, I’ve coached some great players and he’s the fastest learner I’ve ever come across.”

Speaking after a 6-1 6-4 round of 16 win over Japan’s Keisuke Saitoh on Thursday, Li Tu said he had benefited greatly from having Cash in his corner.

“He’s an encyclopaedia of tennis knowledge. We’ve worked on my serve a lot, getting the fundamentals right and having a baseline game I can produce over and over again,” Tu said.

“It’s amazing to have Cashy in the corner with tactics and everything, we enjoy each other’s company and it’s been really fun.”

LAUNCESTON INTERNATIONAL QUARTER FINALS

Women: Lizette Cabrera (1) def Sarah Rokusek 6-3 6-4; Alana Subasic def Elena Micic (4) 6-3 6-3; Chengyiyi Yuan def Vaidehee Chaudhari (5) 6-1 6-3; Miho Kuramochi (3) def I Wen Wan 6-4 3-6 6-3

Men: Matthew Dellavedova (7) def Moerani Bouzige (4) 6-3 6-4; Yu Hsiou Hsu (1) def Duje Markovina 6-0, 6-3; Omar Jasika (3) def Scott Jones 6-2 6-0; Li Tu (2) def Hiroki Moriya (5) 6-1 4-6 7-6

Originally published as Cabrera targets top 150 after ‘gritty’ Launceston win