Hucknall star Freya Christie eyes top 200 WTA ranking

Freya Christie has set her sights on breaking into the top 200 of the WTA rankings.

The 18-year-old Hucknall tennis star is enjoying her first year on the professional circuit and recently returned from tournaments in Australia.

Four tournaments in little less than a month in Perth, Port Pirie and Mildura followed two weeks training with Great Britain’s Fed Cup Team.

She landed back home on Saturday and has gone straight back into training as she looks to put in the hard work to reach her 2016 goal.

“I’m ranked 370 in the WTA,” she said. “I want to keep it up this year, work hard and try to get my rankings up. I’m aiming to get it inside the top 200.

“I’m enjoying it and it’s going well. I’m training for the next three weeks and then flying to China for $25,000 events for four weeks on more hard courts.”

While out in Australia Christie got the chance to play on grass for the first time this year, in preparation of the summer tournaments.

She said: “I love playing on grass. It was a quick transition between the hard courts and the grass tournament but I enjoyed it.

“It was a change in environment but feel like I adapted to it well and played some good matches on it. It was good practice.

“It’s quite unlikely to play on grass at this time of the year so it was good to get out there on it running up to the summer tournaments.”

Christie was down under for the first time since her entry to the Australian Open Juniors two years ago.

“It’s one of my favourite places to visit and play tennis,” she said. “There was a heat wave while I was over there which made it difficult to play in, in very hot conditions.

“I had four tournaments in a short space of time and I feel like it went really well. I beat some girls in the top 200 and can take confidence from that.

“I’ve been away for six weeks in total, the first two with the Fed Cup team in Israel. It was a really great experience out there.”

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