From home off the tennis court
with her on the road during a string of tournaments in Australia.
‘‘It was good being with Neil and having a travelling coach is nice, he came with me for three weeks,’’ Routliffe said.
‘‘It was tough because the tournaments are really strong, but I definitely felt like I improved and made some good strides in my game.
‘‘Maybe we didn’t get some of the results we wanted, but you’ve got to keep going week after week and not be too hard on yourself.
‘‘When you’re all by yourself sometimes you play the matches and think about what you think you did wrong and right.
‘‘But when a coach is there, he can tell you exactly what he thinks and it can give you a different perspective.’’
Routliffe played doubles at Wimbledon this year, with Alexa Guarachi, of Chile, and Routliffe has an impressive doubles ranking of 107, so she and Guarachi will be able to play doubles at the Classic without needing a wildcard.
In singles, Routliffe is ranked 731, but she doesn’t want to focus on being just a doubles player.
‘‘I still know I want to play singles,’’ she said.
‘‘I don’t think I’ve played to my full potential yet and I hope to do that.
‘‘When I feel that I have and I just want to play doubles from then on, I’ll do that. But I don’t want to just play doubles right now, I’m pretty adamant about that.’’