How Elena Baltacha found her first love again

 
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Glenn Moore5 March 2013

When Laura Robson ended Kim Clijsters’s career as she drove into the fourth round at the US Open Elena Baltacha was unmoved. It was not that she was jealous, she had just had enough of tennis. After two decades on the treadmill she had finally fallen out of love with the sport. Her last match had been at the London Olympics and there was nothing left to motivate her.

But when this year’s Australian Open came round, and Robson and Heather Watson reached the third round, she was deeply envious. “The US Open did nothing for me but watching the ­Australian it really hurt me not being there,” she said. “I’d got the love for it again.”

The love returned in the most unlikely of ways and places, while coaching a member of her academy at a minor tournament in Egypt.

Baltacha said: “I was not motivated any more after the Olympics. When you do something for so many years you go stale and that’s what happened to me. I was coaching, loving being at home, doing all the stuff I have not done for many years. Even when on court [coaching] I had no desire to come back. Then I went away to Egypt and loved it. It was not what I expected.”

Before we talk Baltacha had been demonstrating her rekindled love for her sport to year three pupils at Britannia Village Primary School in Silvertown, East London, as part of Aegon’s schools tennis programme. Her patient enthusiasm as she coached was evident.

“As an athlete you are very blinkered, you only see your side,” said the world No192. “As a mentor I began to see what Nino [Severino, her coach] meant when he spoke to me about doing certain things that I had not wanted to do. I could see my limitations. It was mental, tactical, technical, a bit of everything. I spoke to Nino so much about it I had a £500 phone bill from Egypt. Everything I said to the girl I was trying to mentor it was as if I was addressing myself. When I got home I said to Nino, ‘I think I might want to have another go’.”

There was a further test to pass. If Baltacha was going to play professionally again she had to have an ankle operation. She had put it off and put it off unable to face the prospect of the rehabilitation work. Now she decided to see if she had ‘the stomach for it’.

The operation went well. Baltacha got back into the gym and then, four weeks ago, back on court. “It feels very good. I’m very excited,” she said. A return to action next month is pencilled in with the little matter of a Federation Cup match in Argentina on April 20-21 to aim for.

Once Baltacha would have walked back into the team but now there is stiff competition from Robson and Watson, plus Johanna Konta and old rival Anne Keothavong, all of whom are now higher in the rankings. Not for long if Baltacha has her way.

“I’m very happy for Heather and Laura but my goal is to come back and get my No1 spot back. It is not a case of ‘great for Laura, great for Heather, I’ll be over there at No3’. If I am coming back I want to come back properly. It is good to have a bit of competition, it is getting me to work very hard.

“They are both very talented, but you can’t put a [ranking] number on [where they will get to]. It depends how they improve, what they improve on, on the draws they get, on injuries, and the standard of the other players.”

Baltacha, who overcame liver disease and career-threatening injury to spend three years as British No1 and two in the world top 50, added: “If I don’t get back to the top 50 I will still be very proud of what I have done.”

Life and pensions company Aegon, lead partner of British tennis, are delighted to be celebrating Britannia Village Primary School as the 15,000th participant of the Aegon school tennis programme. Aegon supports tennis at all levels of the game from grass roots programmes to world-class tournaments. www.ageontennis.co.uk

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