(1) Anna Fitzpatrick: Anna ended the year at a new career high inside the top 400. Started the year well with a 10K final in Sunderland and then made the latter stages of further futures in Canada and Nottingham later in the year. She's started to trouble challenger level players on a regular basis, making her first 25K quarters in Turkey and beating several top 250 players
(2) Jade Curtis: Despite not playing that many events, Jade shot up the rankings to the top 500...making her first 10K final in Frinton...
(3) Amanda Elliott: Amanda stormed up the rankings this year from unranked to 636...making her first 10K final in Bournemouth and several more strong runs in 10Ks. Her year was kick-starte by a series of good performances on South American clay, she made the final of a junior tournament in Bolivia
(4) Tara Moore: Still only 15, Tara is now ranked 816 wta and made three 10K quarters. She beat a top 350 player in May.In juniors, she reached the top 100 and reached the latter stages of several G1s and G2s...including the quarters of last week's Yucatan World Cup
(5) Laura Robson: 13 year Laura has been in stunning form this year....competing in ITF junior events for the first time against players who are mostly 3-5 years older and she's made 3 finals, taking her first title in Finland. Last month she won the prestigious Eddie Herr U14 title (competing against the best in the world in that age group) only dropping 1 set
I voted for Jade. Laura is obviously a stand-out candidate because of what she has achieved at such a young age, but I think Jade has bucked my own personal expectations more than almost any other player this year.
Her and Cavaday both emerged into senior tennis in 06 (OK, they had from promising junior careers and, while Naomi surged up the rankings, Jade sat disappointingly around the 1000 mark. I effectively wrote her off after that, expecting her to be just another also-ran, but her progress into the top 500 this year has taken me completely by surprise.
I don't want to jinx her by predicting great things from her next year, but I'm going to anyway :)
Jade had some pretty impressive junior results too-I seem to remember a ridiculous two weeks when she won a singles G3 with the doubles, and the finalled in a G1 the week after in both singles and doubles (having been through qualies).
That said, I am looking forward most to Laura Robson and Tara Moore in the years ahead. But Jade has happily surprised me most this year with her progress.
