Now as a great lover of tennis, I am fascinated by the progress of our British tennis stars; both current and future. And i'm sure you will all agree Anne Keothavong has been grabbing the headlines recently, and thankfully for all the right reasons.
There is usually quite a lot of negative press about Women's tennis, especially in relation to female British players, yet I really wish more had been made of Keothavong's recent triumph at the AEGON Pro-GB series, because it marks a significant step in her career. Plus it's always good to see a female British tennis player win something, right?
Ranked 91 in the world before the tournament, Keothavong has experienced many ups and downs in her career and this victory at Barnstaple will no doubt give her the confidence to achieve bigger and better things next season, and who knows we might have a female Brit in the later rounds of a grand slam fairly soon. She was unfortunate to lose a hard-fought battle in the semi-final against Monica Niculescu at the recent WTA tour event held in Luxembourg, in a match that lasted just over three hours. If she had made the final, Keothavong would have been the first British female player to make the final of a WTA tour event since Jo Durie in 1990. She also lost recently at the Generali Ladies event in Austria to well-known third seed Jelena Jankovic, despite taking the first set. Even this marks a remarkable improvement because, unfortunately, our women seem to crumble against the bigger stars but to push Jankovic so hard would surely have meant a lot to the popular Brit.
The forgotten fact of Barnstaple however is that she also triumphed in the doubles, winning with partner Eva Birnerova, and the British number two said on twitter: "Its been a great week for me, had some great support and really happy to do the double." No doubt her popularity will rocket after this, and for British tennis fans across the country it will be a welcome relief to see a female Brit win not one title; but two in the same week.
Her recent success has also led her to rise to number 83 in the world and become the British number two, and there will be even more positive news for British tennis fans as Elena Baltacha has climbed into the top 50 after making the second round of all four grand slams and winning 10 ITF titles this season.
A lot has been said in the press over the years about the state of British tennis but it seems to be definitely on the up, with three women inside the top 100 and of course Andy Murray's rise above Roger Federer to world number three. As well as a recent triumph for Colin Fleming and Ross Hutchins in the doubles at the St Petersburg Open. Of course, there is still room for improvement, particularly on the female side as I'm sure many will agree that to really push on our women need to be making later rounds of grand slams.
Who knows, maybe it isn't such a big ask to see our women make the prestige second week at Wimbledon in the near future. I for one don't believe the doubters, with Keothavong's recent victories and Baltacha's rise in to the world's top 50 there is evidence enough to suggest that they CAN achieve great things next season. Oh, and I haven't even mentioned Laura Robson or Heather Watson yet....
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