‘I got to live my dreams’: Johanna Konta retires from tennis aged 30

Former British No 1 Johanna Konta has announced her immediate retirement from professional tennis.

Konta, 30, is the most successful British women’s player of the past two decades, having reached a career high ranking of No 4 in 2017, three grand slam semi-finals and she won the prestigious Miami Open in 2017. Earlier this year, she won her fourth career WTA title in Nottingham.

“Grateful, this is the word that I’ve probably used the most during my career, and is the word that I feel explains it best at the end. My playing career has come to an end, and I am so incredibly grateful for the career that it turned out to be,” Konta wrote in a statement.

Konta was born in Sydney, Australia to Hungarian parents before moving to Great Britain aged 14. She was a late bloomer, having spent much of her earlier career ranked outside of the top 100 while grinding through the lower levels of professional tennis on the ITF circuit.

Her fortunes changed after she set up a training base in Gijón, Spain in 2015, working with Spanish coaches Esteban Carril and José-Manuel García. Konta first broke into the top 100 at the age of 24 after reaching the US Open fourth round in 2015.

Once she arrived there, she remained at the top of the game for six years and she reached semi-finals at the Australian Open in 2016, Wimbledon in 2017 and the French Open in 2019. She has defeated numerous top players, including Simona Halep, Venus Williams, Serena Williams and Petra Kvitova.

Over the past few years, Konta has struggled with a knee injury that has required constant treatment and she has limited her playing time, falling to her current ranking of 113. Off the court, Konta recently became engaged to her boyfriend, Jackson Wade, and she has spoken of her intentions to start a family in the next part of her life.

“All the evidence pointed towards me not ‘making’ it in this profession,” she said. “However my luck materialised in the people that came into my life and impacted my existence in ways that transcended tennis. I am so incredibly grateful for these people you know who you are.

“Through my resilience and the guidance of others, I got to live my dreams.”

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