Nicole Pratt speaks about Australian women rankings
Australia has five women ranked inside the WTA top 100, the biggest number they have had in over 25 years. The rankings have seen the likes of Ashleigh Barty (9), Ajla Tomljanovic (43), Daria Gavrilova (58), Sam Stosur (76) and Astra Sharma (98) all cracking the Top-100.
“What’s exciting is that of that group of players (currently in the top 100), most of them are only going up, in terms of their rankings getting better. So that’s super exciting,” observed Nicole Pratt, Tennis Australia’s head of women’s tennis and Fed Cup coach.
“The other thing worth noting is the number of players we also have from 100 to 250; my belief is that we’ve got to keep that as a healthy number. And then, my thinking is that we’ll always have players then move into the top 100.
“Astra’s one of those players, who’d been inside top 250 and now has moved inside top 100. And it’s exciting to think that Priscilla Hon is 130, Kim Birrell is 150, Zoe Hives is 200, and Destanee Aiava and Jaimee Fourlis have been inside the top 200.”
“These players now in the top 100 coinciding with it being 26 years since we last reached the Fed Cup final, I think it’s a moment in time we should actually really celebrate.”
She also spoke about the ATP side of the tour, “Our men are also in a healthy position in the ATP rankings, with six currently inside the top 100. It’s been that way since October 2018, and there was also a brief period in October 2015 when Australia had six top-100 ranked men.”
from Tennis World USA http://bit.ly/2LkIxmY
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