Katie Swan: All you need to know about Britain's teenage tennis star
From high-profile backing to cashing in at Wimbledon. The rise of Katie Swan...
Wednesday 4 July 2018 13:38, UK
Katie Swan shocked world No 36 Irina-Camelia Begu to become the first home player into the second round at Wimbledon. Here's all you need to know about the British teenager.
Great Britain has a new tennis star after 19-year-old Swan won a Grand Slam match for the first time on Monday. Swan, ranked 204th in the world, raised home spirits with a 6-2 6-2 win over Begu and was a rare British winner on the opening day at Wimbledon.
Here, we look at a few things you may not know about Swan...
Early promise
Swan came to the attention of the Lawn Tennis Association at the age of eight and in 2009 she won her first international tournament in Croatia, the Smrikva Bowl, an event for 10-year-olds.
High-profile backing
Swan first met her idol, Andy Murray, when she was 10 and nine years later she has signed for the two-time Wimbledon champion's management company. Murray will surely be in touch to congratulate Swan, who recently revealed she has spent more time discussing reality show Love Island with the star than she has talking tennis.
Swan on Murray: "I actually didn't talk to him much before Wimbledon. I think he was busy with himself deciding what he was going to be doing. I saw him last week, but we didn't really talk about tennis. Yeah, it was more social talk, like Love Island, that kind of stuff."
Paws for thought
Swan and her family are based in Wichita, Kansas, and she says what she misses the most when travelling on the tennis tour are her four dogs.
Cashing in
Swan's career prize money to date totals £99,306. Monday's victory will bring her a guaranteed £63,000, and if she gets through another round Swan will earn a cool £100,000.
Exciting times
"So exciting. It's something that as a little girl I dreamed about to play here. To get a wild card, I was so grateful to get that. And this year I've been working really hard. The last few weeks I've shown more myself than anyone I can compete with the top girls. Going into the match today with that mindset, I think that's why I was able to win."
How Murray helped find Diego
"Yeah, he's [Murray] been so nice. He helped me with finding Diego [Veronelli] as my coach. I would say every couple of weeks he would text me to see how things were going, how the set-up was, asking about what tournaments I was going to be playing. Then over the grass, we went out to lunch once. In Eastbourne we had a team dinner, which was really nice.
"It's almost surreal being in somebody's company, somebody like that, because he was always my idol growing up. To now be so close with him, it's really cool."
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Our next tennis action comes from the German Open in Hamburg. Watch the action live on Sky Sports Arena from Monday, July 23 from 10am.
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