Smash hit Taylor’s rise from four-year-old prodigy to British top 10 player

Gabriella Taylor was just four years old when she first started to play minitennis, and her talent was so obvious that she began one-toone coaching just six weeks later.

She has been home-schooled since the age of 15, and is working towards completing her A-levels, which she has been forced to put on hold while she focuses on the summer tennis season.

The 18-yearold is currently ranked 381st in the world on the women’s tour, and had competed in nine senior tournaments before taking part in the juniors at Wimbledon, including this year’s Aegon Classic in Birmingham, where she lost in a qualifying round.

She has recently enjoyed a dramatic climb up the rankings, rising from from 1,020th to 381st in seven months. She is the British No 10, and has won more than £30,000 in prize money in her short career.

Taylor had received a wildcard entry into the junior Wimbledon draw. There she cruised through her first two matches before thrashing second seed Rebeka Masarova, who had won the junior French Open just a month earlier. She was able to grab the third- round win despite spending much of the previous night awake with sickness.

It was in Taylor’s quarterfinal, against the American fifth seed Kayla Day, that the illness finally got the better of her as she was visibly unwell and was forced to retire at the start of the second set as she was trailing 4-6 1-1.

Her game is based on accurate shotmaking, while she is a solid defensive player with an array of hand skills which add variety to her attack.

She played with wrist pain for two years before eventually having an operation on torn cartilage in January 2015.

Taylor has turned down a chance to go to college in America so she can focus on her education, as well as her tennis.