According to the LTA "By reaching the last eight at a clay court event, Keothavong has become the British female player since Sam Smith in 1990 to achieve this feat while the last player to reach a semi-final on clay was Jo Durie at the French Open in 1983"
The ITF does have Sam Smith down as reaching QFs in Athens and Sao Paulo on clay, but neither tournament appears in the records contained in the Official Guide to Professional Tennis, so I imagine that they were part of some unofficial circuit. Steven's stat about Jo Durie looks more likely to be correct for Official Tour events - I've checked the records of the other players most likely to have achieved a QF since 1986.
Anne is first up tomorrow (11am) on the main court, and will therefore be on Eurosport
According to the LTA "By reaching the last eight at a clay court event, Keothavong has become the British female player since Sam Smith in 1990 to achieve this feat while the last player to reach a semi-final on clay was Jo Durie at the French Open in 1983"
The ITF does have Sam Smith down as reaching QFs in Athens and Sao Paulo on clay, but neither tournament appears in the records contained in the Official Guide to Professional Tennis, so I imagine that they were part of some unofficial circuit. Steven's stat about Jo Durie looks more likely to be correct for Official Tour events - I've checked the records of the other players most likely to have achieved a QF since 1986.
I'm very impressed that the LTA have included these stats in their report at all - it's the kind of thing they weren't doing even last week (with Wardy) until they were prompted. I hadn't realised that Sam Smith had done ok on clay in the first of the two successful phases of her career, so they've got me there as well.
However, it's interesting what you say about Athens and Sao Paolo not being listed in the OGtPT. It turns out (from the Wikipedia entries for the two winners, both of whom only won tournaments in those locations) that they were both Tier Vs. I thought WTA events only went down to Tier IV last year, so maybe that means that Tier Vs were the equivalent of what are now 100K(+H) ITFs.
Hence Anne probably is the first Brit since Jo Durie in 1986 to reach the QFs of a clay court event at a level equivalent to today's WTA main tour events.
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