Australian No.1 Kim Birrell will hit a career-high rating subsequent week after an excellent fightback to achieve the quarterfinals of the Singapore Open.
Singapore, 30 January 2025 | Ian Chadband, AAP
Kim Birrell is hitting uncharted territory as a possible new flagbearer for Australian girls’s tennis after she pulled off a superb comeback to achieve the quarterfinals of the Singapore Open.
Presently ranked No.95 on the planet – the one Aussie girl within the sport’s top-100 – Birrell is assured to soar to a career-high rating subsequent week of not less than world No.85 and will rise to as excessive as the highest 60 if she lands her first WTA match triumph.
Birrrell, who reached her first WTA last in Osaka final October on the Japan Open and began 2025 simply as impressively, beating world No.8 Emma Navarro en path to the Brisbane Worldwide quarters, discovered herself 5-2 down within the deciding set of her last-16 conflict with American Hailey Baptiste at Kallang Tennis Hub on Thursday.
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However the 26-year-old battled again to reel off the following 5 video games towards world No.93 Baptiste and triumph 6-7(3) 6-3 7-5 in practically three hours to arrange a last-eight assembly with one other US participant, Ann Li, who’s already knocked out one Australian, Daria Saville, this week.
The win typified the combating spirit of Birrell, who from 2019-2022 felt that fixed surgical procedure on her injured proper elbow would possibly merely derail her profession.
“I’m so blissful that I’ve been in a position to come by the opposite finish and it feels prefer it’s approach behind me now. I by no means wish to overlook what I’ve gone by; it makes me take pleasure in taking part in a lot extra,” she informed The Straits Instances after the match.
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“It makes me benefit from the battle like immediately and respect these moments the place you get by powerful matches as a result of I went by a interval after I wasn’t positive if I used to be even going to get again on courtroom to expertise moments like these.”
Birrell, who additionally made the ultimate of the Australian Open blended doubles with John-Patrick Smith, has huge ambitions.
“I don’t wish to restrict myself to that rating,” stated the Gold Coast participant. “I wish to have larger targets to be nicely inside the highest 100 and really feel comfy there and cement myself at that prime sufficient rating to be taking part in huge tournaments each week.”
Birrell’s compatriots, Maya Joint and Olivia Gadecki, didn’t advance past the last-16.
The promising 18-year-old Joint was crushed 6-4 6-2 by China’s Wang Xinyu whereas Switzerland’s Jil Teichmann defeated Gadecki 6-4 6-4.
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