Wanborough's Louise Hunt had a brief stop over in the UK this week as her quest to qualify for the London 2012 Paralympics took her from back-to-back wheelchair tennis tournaments in north America to the west coast of France for the Open de L'ile de Re.
The French tournament starts on Wednesday and British No. 3 Hunt arrived in good heart after bettering her best doubles ranking for the second week in succession, reaching a current peak of No. 13 this week after titles in Canada and South Carolina over the past fortnight.
Hunt has enjoyed her most recent success partnering Somerset's British No. 1 Lucy Shuker, the duo dropping just four games en route to the women's doubles title at the Tennis Canada International in Montreal as Hunt ended her first ever tournament on the other side of the Atlantic on a winning note.
Victory in Canada took Hunt's doubles ranking to No. 15 and the 19-year-old University of Bath student and Shuker then moved on to last week's PTR Championships on Hilton Head Island, South Carolina, where they again eased into the final. However, this time the final proved far more demanding before the British duo prevailed in three tough sets against Canada's Yuka Chokyu and Japan's Kanako Domori, winning 7-6(8), 4-6, 6-4 to take Hunt's personal tally of doubles titles in 2011 to seven.
"It was a very successful first trip to north America for me and I really enjoying playing doubles with Lucy," said Hunt as she made the transition between airports in her brief arrival back on home soil. "I'm thrilled with my new doubles ranking, but it's all about trying to qualify for London 2012 and I would like to get my singles ranking up to somewhere near where my doubles ranking currently is."
Hunt arrives in France world ranked No. 20 in singles and along with her fellow players on the Tennis Foundation's Wheelchair Tennis Performance Programme she needs be within a particular ranking bracket by mid-May in 2012 in order to earn a qualification slot for the London Paralympics. For Hunt, that particular threshold needs to be somewhere within the world's top 22 and she reached the quarter-finals of the women's singles in Canada and the semi-finals of the last week's tournament in Hilton Head to help maintain her place challenging the world's top 20
"Everything's going well at the moment and I hope I can get another good set of results under my belt this week," said Hunt, whose singles progress in Canada and Hilton Head was only ended in the quarter-finals and semi-finals respectively after she took two players ranked inside the world's top 12 to third and final set deciders. "The goal is to qualify for London 2012 and to earn the chance to compete at a home Games in front of a home crowd would be amazing."
After this week's tournament in France, the former Commonweal School pupil then heads to Sardinia next week for her fourth ITF 2 Series tournament in successive weeks.
Ticket applications for the London 2012 Paralympics can be made until 6.00pm on Monday, 26th September at www.tickets.london.2012.com.