British No1 Keothavong delighted to earn a crack at the champion

Anne Keothavong is the only British woman in the main draw ranked high enough to get into the tournament as of right and, though that seemed to be as much a burden as a source of confidence yesterday, she still managed to join her countrywoman Elena Baltacha in the second round.

Keothavong's reward, if that is the right word, is a second-round meeting with the defending champion, Venus Williams, so perhaps it is best that she enjoys the 4-6, 6-2, 6-3 victory over the Californian Vania King while she can.

A meeting with Williams is a rather unkind draw for Keothavong, a player who has made genuine strides forward this year by becoming the first British woman in nine years to break into the world's top 100. The 24-year-old has risen to No92, and though that may not impress either the general public or Williams, who is a former No1 and a four-time winner here, in relative terms it is an achievement as important for Keothavong as winning only her second match at Wimbledon in nine attempts.

Regardless of what happens against Williams, Keothavong is guaranteed entry into the main draw of the US Open and has graduated from playing lowly Futures events to competing on the WTA Tour itself. Tennis is a sport of multiple layers, with Wimbledon at the very top, and while most British players are usually catapulted past several of those layers and straight into the big time when they are given wildcards into their home grand slam each year, Keothavong has worked her way up this time.

King is actually world-ranked a place lower than Britain's No1 but that did not make yesterday's win a gimme by any means. There are inherent pressures in any match played at Wimbledon because of the attention, prize money and ranking points available at the world's biggest tournament.

Certainly Keothavong was nervous and waged a battle with her own anxieties as much as with King. "I'm pleased, obviously, to get through today's match. It was incredibly tight in the first set," she said. "It was a horrible kind of feeling. But, you know, I managed to regroup and I managed to turn the match around."

There is a feistiness about Keothavong and after losing the first set she took a bathroom break and used the opportunity to berate herself. The talking-to worked and she looked a different player in the second set, which saw a blaze of winners from the Briton and a far more aggressive outlook all round. She even took to standing inside the baseline and bullying her opponent into serving errors.

"I was in the toilets there and I was shaking because I was just so annoyed with myself," said Keothavong. "I was just frustrated about the performance I'd just given in that first set. It was nerves. It was kind of the expectations I had of myself. I put quite a bit of pressure on myself to win and it wasn't quite happening, but I managed to find a way."

It is not fashionable to write or say nice things about British tennis, particularly the women's game, at this time of year but the Lawn Tennis Association must be doing something right.

Keothavong and Baltacha, who takes on Jie Zheng today, are part of a group of women who are based at the LTA's National Tennis Centre at Roehampton and whose rankings have all risen in the last 12 months. Keothavong might have been the first to break into the top 100 but Katie O'Brien was only a match away from making a similar leap a fortnight ago while Baltacha, currently ranked 158, will have picked up ranking points by beating Angelique Kerber in the first round.

O'Brien went out 6-3, 7-5 to the Israeli 24th seed Shahar Peer yesterday, somehow blowing a 5-0 lead in the second set which she struggled to comprehend afterwards. "I couldn't even explain it myself at the moment," she said. "I didn't particularly get flustered or uptight.

"I felt like I was going for my shots, which was how I was trying to dictate the points, which was how I was getting success to get to 5-0. But to be fair to her, she turned the game around and she made an awful lot of balls."