The 27-year-old is the daughter of former pros Kelly and Tami Jones, who run the tennis program at Rancho La Quinta.
Palm Springs Desert Sun
A couple weeks after Makenna Jones tore the ACL and meniscus in her right knee during a 2023 doubles match, her parents moved to La Quinta to run the tennis program at Rancho La Quinta Country Club.
As a player, her dad, Kelly Jones, reached a career-high ranking of No. 1 in 1992. He played at Indian Wells a dozen times. Her mom, Tami (Whitlinger) Jones, was a two-time All-American at Stanford and played at Indian Wells 10 times during her playing career.
After surgery on her right knee in Tampa early last year, Jones flew to the California desert to visit her parents at their new home. She enjoyed her stay so much that she decided to remain there for the duration of her rehab.
“I was supposed to be here only one week, but I never went back to Florida," said Jones, 27. "I was just so happy here. It was such a cool environment. Moving to La Quinta was the best part of my rehab."
On Tuesday, six months after her return to tennis, Jones was notified that she had received a wild card invite to play doubles with fellow American McCartney Kessler at the BNP Paribas Open.
On Friday, Jones and Kessler won their first match, 6-2, 6-4, over American Bethanie Mattek-Sands and Marie Bouzkova of Czechia inside Stadium 6 at the Indian Wells Tennis Garden. The pair will play together again on Sunday.
"The mojo felt really good," Jones said. "I thought it was a really good pairing. I'm kind of excited about it."
A crowd of a few dozen friends from Rancho La Quinta sat with Kelly and Tami Jones, cheering on Jones and Kessler. A sign with a red heart on it rose from the crowd whenever the cheering section stood to applaud.
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"Literally the whole neighborhood," Jones said with a smile after the match. "It was more people even than I could tell. When I went down to hug everybody, it was literally everyone. It was so cute."
Jones said that the cheering section wasn't too rowdy. She said that it was "the perfect amount of happy fandom," and that it boosted the energy in the small stadium that seats a few hundred. She said that it was "so positive," and made her first experience playing at Indian Wells a memorable one.
Jones played well, too. Her volley game at the net was strong, and she even showed off her serve, forehand and backhand in the match, slicing a number of winners down the sideline.
Not that it was a perfect match. A couple times, on an unforced error, Jones simply smiled and shook it off, seemingly living in this unique moment that she was experiencing.
Down a double break in the second set, Mattek-Sands and Bouzkova won four of the next five games and pushed Jones and Kessler into a critical game to avoid a potential tiebreak. But Jones and Kessler maintained their poise, didn't tighten up too much and successfully put the match to bed.
“It’s awesome to see her with this opportunity," Kelly Jones said. "We're all just really excited for her."
Makenna Jones grew up in Florida and South Carolina and played collegiately at North Carolina. During her final two years of college, she was among the elite doubles players in the nation. She was a 2021 national doubles champion, playing alongside Elizabeth Scotty.
Jones began her pro career later that year, with Scotty as her doubles partner.
After rehabbing her knee for nine months, Jones returned to the courts in September, reaching the final at an ITF event in San Rafael with doubles partner Jamie Loeb.
Jones has since played in 10 ITF events and a WTA tournament in Austin, Texas. She reached the final in four of those events and won three titles.
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She's no stranger to the bigger tournaments. Jones has twice played doubles at the U.S. Open (2021, 2023) and she's played at Wimbledon once (2023).
But Indian Wells is by far the biggest event she's played since returning to the sport following knee surgery. That the tournament site is just down the street from her home at Rancho La Quinta made Friday's match a particularly special one for Jones.
"Some players have been surprised to hear that I live here," Jones said. "Other than maybe in Miami, I don't know if any player lives as close to a tournament as I do to Indian Wells."
Jones said that while it's a local tournament to those in the valley, she's reminded that it's still a Masters 1000 event, which is not easy to get into, even as a wild card.
Coming back from her injury, she wasn't sure if she would get the tournament invite. She had no expectations.
Jones said that she has earned some wild cards previously, but the goal for her is always to do something with the wild card whenever she receives one, to prove that she belongs.
She did that on Friday.
"It feels really good," Jones said. "You don't want to be that wild card where it's like, 'Oh, cute, they got to play.' No, no, no. That's not what I want. I want to go out and show that we deserve to be out here, and I think McCartney helped with that a lot.
"That's the best part, to show that you deserve that wild card."
Andrew John covers the BNP Paribas Open for The Desert Sun and the USA TODAY Network. Email him at [email protected].