Halesowen's Jordanne Whiley looks set to return to her career best world ranking of No 13 this week after arguably the best performance of her career to reach last week's women's singles semi-finals at the British Open Wheelchair Tennis Championships in Nottingham.
The event saw the 18-year-old British No 2 reach her first semi-final at ITF Super Series status on the NEC Wheelchair Tennis Tour, a result she achieved by beating her first world top five ranked opponent.
After a 6-2, 6-4 win over British No 3 Louise Hunt in the first round, the unseeded Whiley put up an improved effort to defeat Germany seventh seed Katharina Kruger 6-4, 6-1 in the second round, but her performance of the week came after her quarter-final match against world No 5 Florence Alix-Gravellier of France was switched indoors due to rain.
Whiley, who went into last week's tournament world ranked No 14, came from a set and 4-2 down to beat second seed and former world No. 2 Alix-Gravellier, eventually wrapping up a 1-6, 6-4, 6-1 victory.
"I wasn't really expecting to win when I went on court against Florence, so I was quite relaxed and I think that was the key," said Whiley, who trains at the David Lloyd club at Brierley Hill under the guidance of coach Nigel Hunter. "When I was 4-2 down in the second I thought 'if I'm going to go down, I'm not going down without a fight'. So I kept fighting for every point and then all of a sudden I was level at 4-4 and serving for the set at 5-4 up.
"I couldn't believe I was in the semi-finals and I had nothing to lose, but it just wasn't a good day for me the following day," added Whiley, who eventually had her progress in a tournament ranked only second in importance to those at Grand Slams halted by world No 7 Jiske Griffioen of the Netherlands, who won their semi-final 6-0, 6-0. "I know it will all come together, but I've changed a lot of my game to try and get to that next level. There's still a lot of work to do, although I can take a lot of confidence from last week."