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 lady within the sport’s top-100 – Birrell is assured to soar to a career-high rating subsequent week of at the very least world No.85 and will rise to as excessive as the highest 60 if she lands her first WTA event 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 may merely derail her profession.
“I’m so glad that I’ve been capable of come by way of the opposite finish and it feels prefer it’s method behind me now. I by no means need to overlook what I’ve gone by way of; it makes me get pleasure from enjoying a lot extra,” she informed The Straits Occasions after the match.
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“It makes me benefit from the battle like as we speak and admire these moments the place you get by way of robust matches as a result of I went by way of a interval after I wasn’t certain if I used to be even going to get again on court docket to expertise moments like these.”
Birrell, who additionally made the ultimate of the Australian Open combined doubles with John-Patrick Smith, has large ambitions.
“I don’t need to restrict myself to that rating,” mentioned the Gold Coast participant. “I need to have greater objectives to be properly inside the highest 100 and really feel snug there and cement myself at that top sufficient rating to be enjoying large 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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