Just over a year since her tragically premature death, the legacy of Scots tennis star Elena Baltacha continues to flourish.
In a rare interview today, her widower Nino Severino speaks about the painful gap the top 50 player left after losing her battle with liver cancer at the age of 30.
But he also talks of ambitious plans to bring her tennis academy to Scotland for the first time, in a bid to inspire the top 50 players of the future.
Bally, as she was affectionately known, set up the foundation and tennis academy not long before her death.
So far it has given more than 9,000 children the opportunity to try out the game and get the physical and emotional support they need to improve.
And now Glasgow's youngsters are to benefit, with news that coaches from the academy are to team-up with the Western Tennis Club in Hyndland.
Nino says before her death he and Bally planned to spend a lot more time in Scotland. Sadly, that wasn't to be.
It will perhaps be of some comfort to him that her legacy will inspire a new generation of Scottish children to take up the game she loved. That growing legacy ensures Elena and her achievements will never be forgotten.
"She will be smiling right now," says Nino.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article