With injury woes behind her, Birrell holds nerves and serves to reach S’pore Tennis Open q-finals
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Australian tennis player Kimberly Birrell broke into the top 100 for the first time in her career in January.
ST PHOTO: MARK CHEONG
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SINGAPORE – Even as she sat on the verge of defeat in her round-of-16 clash against American Hailey Baptiste at the Singapore Tennis Open on Jan 30, Kimberly Birrell did not waver.
Down 5-2 in the third set, the Australian draped her towel over her head as she sat on the players’ bench in between games, taking a moment to collect herself at the Kallang Tennis Hub.
Then, she clawed her way back to make it 5-5, before breaking 93rd-ranked Baptiste in the 11th game of the set and held serve to seal her spot in the quarter-finals with a 6-7 (3-7), 6-3, 7-5 victory.
The comeback win took nearly three hours, but the 26-year-old relished the challenge, drawing strength from one of the toughest battles she fought a few years ago when repeated surgery on her right elbow cast doubt over her future as a tennis player.
The world No. 95 said: “I’m so happy that I’ve been able to come through the other end and it feels like it’s way behind me now. I never want to forget what I’ve gone through, it makes me enjoy playing so much more.
“It makes me enjoy the battle like today and appreciate those moments where you get through tough matches because I went through a period when I wasn’t sure if I was even going to get back on court to experience moments like these.”
Between July 2019 and January 2022, she spent a collective 29 months on the sidelines as she nursed an elbow injury, dropping to as low as No. 740 on the WTA rankings.
However, Birrell has put the tumultuous period behind her and has enjoyed an impressive start to 2025.
At the Brisbane International in early January, she defeated then world No. 8 Emma Navarro of the United States in the round of 32 for her first win over a top-10 player in six years, before making her maiden WTA 500 quarter-final.
Her performance in Australia propelled her into the top 100 for the first time in her career and she continued to have more breakthroughs on home ground, qualifying for the singles main draw at the Australian Open and making it to the mixed doubles final with John-Patrick Smith.
Birrell, who plays American Ann Li in the last eight of the US$275,000 (S$371,000) Singapore tournament on Jan 31, hopes to keep improving her ranking as she eyes more WTA Tour events and the Grand Slams.
She said: “I don’t want to limit myself to that ranking. I want to have bigger goals to be well inside the top 100 and feel comfortable there and cement myself at that high enough ranking to be playing big tournaments every week.”
Elise Mertens of Belgium and China’s Wang Xinyu, the second and fourth seeds of the Singapore WTA 250 event, also booked their spots in the quarter-finals with their respective victories on Jan 30.
World No. 32 Mertens beat Germany’s 73rd-ranked Tatjana Maria 6-7 (3-7), 6-3, 6-1 to set up a meeting with Colombian Camila Osorio in the quarter-finals, while 35th-ranked Wang defeated Australia’s world No. 109 Maya Joint 6-4, 6-2.
Wang will face Switzerland’s 128th-ranked Jil Teichmann, who beat Australian world No. 107 Olivia Gadecki 6-4, 6-4 on Jan 30, in the final eight. The last quarter-final will feature top seed and world No. 18 Anna Kalinskaya against Thailand’s world No. 132 Mananchaya Sawangkaew.
On her comeback victory, Mertens said: “It was a tough match today... In the first set, I had a bit of a slow start.
“But, overall, I turned the match around well, coming in a bit more aggressive and coming towards the net a little bit to shorten the points and it eventually went my way.”
Kimberly Kwek joined The Straits Times in 2019 as a sports journalist and has since covered a wide array of sports, including golf and sailing.
