Elena Baltacha ponders rare feat on clay
May 23 2010 Tennis by Brian Dick
Of all the times to discuss the wonders of the professional tennis circuit with Britain’s Elena Baltacha, the eve of the clay court season is about the worst.
That is not to say the 26-year-old does not have many and increasingly apparent talents but more based on the fact that Baltacha and her compatriots usually take to the red dust like a cat to water.
Indeed while most of their continental cousins, the French and Spanish for instance, love nothing more than springtime in Paris and reserve their best feats for clay, the British have, well, feet of clay.
And having spent the best part of a decade on the tour no one knows that better than Baltacha, the nation’s best female tennis player.
But something is different about the genial Baltacha this year. As she answers the phone in her plush Roman hotel room there is a tone of song in her voice. Bally is happy.
Not even the prospect of having to do an interview at a time when most people are settling in for the evening bothers her, or at least the lilting remnants of a once-Scottish accent do not betray it.
And why should it? Baltacha is currently riding a wave of success that many assumed would never come. Her ability, the powerful serve, slapping forehand and unstinting work ethic have never been in doubt.
However, for so long where her talent wanted to carry her, her body would not go as liver complaints, back injuries and many other debilitating niggles threatened to halt a career before it had ever really gotten going.
And we are not just talking the odd season or two here. Baltacha has been in the sport nearly ten years and for something like six or seven of them she has been undermined by physical problems.
That was until her current coach Nino Severino – a movement specialist – found a way and the people to convince her body to allow her on-court talents to blossom. The result has been spectacular.
Baltacha ended 2006 ranked 347 in the world. She spent the next three seasons making steady, if not spectacular progress up the charts, though still in a pretty inconsistent manner.
