Bally on the rise!

Written by: Staff on 14th September 2010

Bally on the rise!

Elena Baltacha (GBR) |

British No.1 Elena Baltacha is expected to be ranked inside the world’s Top 50 for the first time in her career when she rises to 49 in the WTA Tour’s new standings, due to be officially released on Tuesday following the completion of matches at the rain-delayed US Open.

Watch a video of Bally talking about her achievement here

Baltacha is understood to be the first Scottish woman ever to break into the top 50 of the WTA Tour rankings (which began in 1975) and is the highest ranked Scottish woman since rankings began. She is only the second British woman to break the top 50 in the last 16 years after Anne Keothavong (who reached a career high of 48 in February 2009). Before Keothavong, Jo Durie was the last British woman to be ranked inside the top 50 (in 1993).

“It’s unbelievable. It really does feel so special,” said Baltacha. “At the beginning of the year my goal was to stay in the top 100, I wasn’t even thinking about the top 50 and here we are nine months on and I’ve broken top 50. I spent about ten years trying to make the top 100 and didn’t get anywhere near it, so to do this at the age of 27 feels great. With everything that’s happened over the years, with injury, illness and everything else, just makes it feel all the more amazing to achieve something like this.

I’ve been through the possibility of retiring quite a few times and one time I really was about a week away from taking a coaching job. Now when I think back to that and look at where I am now it gives me goosebumps. I never thought it was going to happen. So much has gone into it, so much hard work, so many tears, and really I’ve got to thank my team that has worked with me because there is no way that I would be sitting at top 50 right now without my coach Nino Severino and all the people that he has bought him to help me, and of course the LTA as well because we do get great support from everyone at the NTC.

Now that I’m top 50, you start setting your goals a lot higher. Obviously I want to take it with baby steps and I don’t want to get too carried away but I really think that I belong in the top 50 and I want to stay there. I really believe that I can still get better and I don’t think that I’ve topped out yet so there is much more in the tank. It will get harder from here because obviously there are more points to accumulate and the level is going to be but it excites me that there is much more to come from me and hopefully my ranking is going to keep going up because I know that there is more left in the tank. Obviously the next goal is the top 40 and I think it’s very possible if I keep working hard, keep my head down and keep developing.”

Website: www.elena-baltacha.com

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Topics: Anne Keothavong, Bally, Break, British Woman, Coach, Coaching Job, Elena Baltacha, Jo Durie, Lta, Nine Months, Ntc, People, Rain, Scottish Woman, Severino, Wta Tour Rankings