Tennisnowornever

Almost two years ago exactly I watched a girl play tennis. She was a fairly normal girl in nearly every way except for one: this girl was someone that we would all come to know as Jo Konta, British number 1 and current world number 8. It was 2015 and the Aegon International tournament was being televised for the first time by the BBC. My money was on Caroline Wozniaki to lift the woman’s singles trophy but I was wrong. This prize went to Belinda Bencic who defeated Agnieszka Radwanska in the final to emerge the victor from a very strong field. However, in retrospect, none of this became my most enduring memory of the tournament. Surprisingly, all I can really remember was watching one of the wildcard entrants. She was a local girl who was ranked around the 150 mark in the world. I wasn’t expecting much from her: just another home hope that the commentators were excited about who would probably have an unremarkable career when all was said and done. But still I settled down to wat...