(with thanks to gbtennisgirls.com for this info and career review)
Karen Paterson decided to call it a day on her pro career earlier this week, the second top British female player to retire this year after Jane O'Donoghue in May
Career Review:
Career Highs: 369 in singles (Oct 2005), 220 in doubles (August 2007)
Career win/loss: 102/106
First event was Edinburgh 25k in 1998, where she won her opening match 63 64 over Monica Massarella. Her first big breakthrough came in 2001 at the 10k in Chandigarh, where she reached the semi-finals as a qualifier, beating 5th seed Dhawan, Sania Mirza and top seed Sai-Jayalakshmy Jayaram. She ended the year ranked 644.
During this period she spent some time at Hazelwood with Baltacha and Keothavong as a hitting partner, although (and Im not 100% sure on this) she was never officially part of the squad.
2003 was the year Karen made her stake as a player with potential. She opened the year with semi-final in Tipton (including a win over Hannah Collin), and also had semi-finalist status at Felixstowe and Pune, and reaching the final of Wrexham. She also won her first main draw match in a 25k, defeating Petra Russegger in Glasgow, and a few weeks later went one better in Jersey, reaching the quarter finals losing to Sybil Bammer. She ended the year just outside the top 400.
A successful move into the GBTG Hub under the guidance of Sara Han****, then Helen Crook and latterly Vic Davies helped Karen maintain this level throughout 2004, and she made her debut on the WTA tour in Birmingham. Her biggest result of the year was a semi in the Glasgow 25k, beating Sabine Klaschka 64 64, and a 75 victory in the third set over Kelly Liggan in the quarter-finals.
2005 started with a final in Grenoble, and back-to-back R16 spots in Jersey and Redbridge, including a 3 set win over Amanda Janes. She also made her Wimbledon debut, losing to Adriana Serra-Zanetti, before losing the final of Nottingham in 3 sets to Keothavong. Arguably the biggest win of her career came this year at the 50k in Batumi, where she defeated 2nd seed Lioudmilla Skavronskia 36 64 76(3) in the first round, and her quarter-final took her to a career high of 369. She also reached the QF of the WTA event in Quebec in the doubles alongside Keothavong.
2006 was a tougher year, with several injuries at inopportune times. One important stat is that excluding Granada where she retired, she never failed to go beyond the first round of a 10k at any point that year. Reaching quarters and semis with comparative ease, she finally claimed her first singles title at Mollerusa with a 3 set win over Year-Campos Molina, and shortly after reached the QF of Nottingham 25k with a win over Brit-basher Nadja Roma. Like so many of her other trips to far-flung corners of the globe, Karen picked up an injury in Australia, making it difficult to capitalise on her good form. She made her main draw debut in the doubles of Wimbledon with Becky Llewellyn.
2007 started with much promise, her second title in Sunderland with 2 wins over top 300 opposition. A groin strain put her out for a month, and she returned to action on an 8 week clay-court tour of America. These strong events made it hard to pick up points, but she finished her trip with a tough 3 set loss to Bettina Jozami in rd2 of Palm Beach. Playing well but unable to squeeze out victories over Govortsova, Grandin and Vankova during the grass-court season, Karen played her last event in London, where she reached the quarter-finals.
Titles: 2 (Mollerusa, Sunderland) Finals: 3 (Wrexham, Grenoble, Nottingham) Semis: 1 x 25k, 9 x 10k Quarters: 1 x 50k, 2 x 25k
Doubles Titles: 5 (4 x 25k, 1 x 10k) Also QF of Quebec WTA Event
Other achievements: Silver Medallist as part of Scottish Team in the Commonwealth Youth Games 2000. Losing to Australia in final the Scottish team also included Elena Baltacha and Mhari Brown. Also represented Scotland in 4 Nations.
Ive been thinking about it for a while and decided it was the right time for me to move on to new things, said Paterson, who reached a career high world ranking of No.369 in 2005.
Ive enjoyed all the experiences that playing tennis has given me and I can look back on my career with no regrets as I always felt I gave it 100%.
I was a bit unlucky with injuries but thats part of playing tennis and unfortunately some players have to go through more than others.
Ive decided to go down the coaching road so hopefully now with the experience Ive got I can go on to help develop young British players.
