‘I got to live my dreams’, says former British No.1

FORMER British number one Johanna Konta has announced her retirement from tennis. The 30-year-old has struggled with a knee problem over the past couple of years and has slipped to 113 in the rankings.

Konta, inset, made the announcement on social media. She wrote: “My playing career has come to an end, and I am so incredibly grateful for the career that it turned out to be. All the evidence pointed towards me not ‘making’ it in this profession.

“However, my luck materialised in the people that came into my life and impacted my existence in ways that transcended tennis. I am so incredibly grateful for these people. You know who you are. Through my own resilience and through the guidance of others, I got to live my dreams. I got to become what I wanted.”

Born in Australia to Hungarian parents, Konta moved to Europe to pursue her tennis career as a teenager, settling with her family in Eastbourne and becoming a British citizen in 2012.

Konta’s emergence at the top level began in 2015, and the next year she reached her first grand slam semi-final at the Australian Open and climbed into the top 10.

In 2017 she became the first British player since Virginia Wade to make the semi-finals at Wimbledon, won the biggest of her four titles at the Miami Open and peaked at fourth in the rankings. She slipped down the rankings in 2018 but was resurgent in 2019, making another grand slam semifinal at the French Open as well as quarter-finals at Wimbledon and the US Open.

She will shortly marry fiance Jackson Wade and has made no secret of her wish to start a family.