Tennis starlet Katie Boulter’s good form has continued on her tour of south Asia and led to a first ever appearance in the top 10 of the world rankings for juniors.
The Woodhouse ace has reached four finals in five competitions over the past few weeks
In her first competition since reaching the junior doubles finals at the Australian Open, the 17-year-old reached the final of a low key doubles tournament in Thailand, partnering China’s F Chun.
She then played the Chang Thailand ITF Juniors G1 competition and reached the finals in both the singles and the doubles
And she went one better than that last week in Malaysia when she and fellow British player Freya Christie claimed the doubles title in the Sarawak Chief Minister’s Cup.
All this led to her being in the listings for the top 10 under 18s in the world.
She did though drop a place to 11th in this week’s rankings after having to retire injured in the semi final of the singles competition in Malaysia while down 6-7, 1-4 to Tami Grende of India.
Katie said: “I am delighted to have made it into the top 10 ITF (International Tennis Federation) rankings for the first time.
“At the moment I am just working hard to transition myself from a Junior to a Senior Pro player.”
Katie was the number one seed in the Chang Thailand competition and dropped just one set in the five rounds leading up to the final.
But she came unstuck against Czech Republic player Simona Heinova, the number eight seed winning 6-4, 6-2.
It was a similar story with Christie in the doubles as they progressed through only to lose 6-4, 6-1 to number two seeds Thailand’s Kamonwan Buayam and Korea’s Dabin Kim.
Boulter was still pleased with the performances and said: “Thailand was a great tournament for me with making both the singles and doubles finals.
“Although I am a little disappointed not to have come home with the bigger trophy I can take heart in the fact that I played extremely well in the semi finals beating Kamonwan Buayam, ranked 523 on the professional WTA tour, 6-2 6-0.”
But Boulter and Christie got their revenge the week after in Malaysia after reaching the final and coming up against Buayam and Kim again.
After losing the first set on the tie break the British pair comfortably won the second set 6-2 before claiming the decider 10-8.
Katie has now moved on to The Philippines and is competing in the Mitsubishi-Lancer International Junior Championships and playing with Christie once again in the doubles competition.
Courtesy of the Loughborough Echo