A Brit of pluck and courage

A Brit of pluck and courage
The Ozzie Open tennis rumbles on with little to commend it except the occasional scare for a “name” and the hope that a Brit may just raise a headline or two – Andy Murray included.


One figure that emerged with such dignity and credit this week was Elena Baltacha, the 26-year-old Kiev-born Brit whose last few sporting years have been packed with pain thanks to a liver condition and back operation.


She emerged from her win over the 30th seed Kateryna Bondarenko saying that she was fed up with reading about herself of the “nearly girl”, the one whose career might have been so different had it not been for her injuries. Poor thing used to be the cry.


She said: “We are all guilty of looking back at problems. We always seem to dwell on the past and all that has happened. We could talk all day about it but what’s the point? I’m in the present. The only way is forward”.


Far from being the usual sports person’s cliché of “I played OK. One game at a time” drivel, the honesty of the words and the obvious frustration of the questioning sparked a rare moment of affinity with the sporting world.


She added in Melbourne: “I look at myself in a different way. I’m OK with everything and I take each day as it comes.”


In these tough days of the duff economy, a war, suffering across the world and trouble, it’s not a bad way to think.