Recent news items
OQ Amanda Elliott in Sutton semis
Amanda Elliott
Photo by James Jordan
OQ Amanda Elliott reached the singles and doubles semi-finals last week at the women’s $25,000 tournament in Sutton, South London.

Elliott, a wildcard entry for the singles draw, provided an upset in the first round by defeating the number one seed, Slovenian Masa Zec-Peskiric, 7-6(5) 6-4. In the last 16, the 18 year-old came from behind to see off Dutch Nicole Thyssen 3-6 6-3 6-4 before defeating Czech Lucie Hradecka 6-3 6-4 in the quarter-final. The right-hander eventually lost in the final four against Czech Andrea Hlavackova 6-2 6-2 who was in turn defeated by Swede Johanna Larsson 7-5 6-0 in Sunday’s final.

In the doubles event, Elliott teamed up with fellow Brit Olivia Scarfi but narrowly lost in the semi-final to the Czech number one seeds, Andrea Hlavackova and Lucie Hradecka, 6-3 7-5. Anna Smith, partnering Swede Johanna Larsson, made it through to the final but also lost to the impressive Czech pairing 6-3 6-3.

Jens Gerlach, Coach of Amanda Elliott, said: “Amanda had a good week in Sutton and justified her wildcard by beating three players ranked between 167 and 287 in the world. These wins should give her a lot of confidence for the upcoming tournaments. However, she needs to keep working hard and follow up on this result to show she is capable of consistently playing at this level.”

Elliott currently has a singles world ranking of 602 and a doubles world ranking of 352. In January, the National Tennis Centre based player won the singles title at the first British Tour tournament of 2008 at Birmingham’s Billesley Indoor Tennis Centre. This was followed by reaching the singles quarter-final and doubles semi-final at the $10,000 tournament in Wrexham.

The women’s $25,000 tournament took place between Monday 4th February and Sunday 10th February at Sutton Junior Tennis Centre. This level of competition acts as an important rung of the ladder to the professional game for many of Britain’s younger players and is a key stage in their development.