TENNIS star Elena Baltacha is to be honoured a year after her death by a trophy named after her.
The winner of this year's inaugural Aegon Open in Nottingham will be presented with the Elena Baltacha Trophy, in memory of the former British number one who died aged 30 after a battle with liver cancer.
Ms Baltacha, who was born in the Ukraine but grew up in Perth and Paisley in Scotland, died on May 4 2014, only months after retiring from competitive tennis.
She won her 11th and final International Tennis Federation (ITF) title in Nottingham in 2013 and it was announced on Monday that a newly-commissioned trophy bearing her name will be awarded to the winner of the tournament next month.
The trophy is described as an art nouveau-style bowl in sterling silver, measuring 24 centimetres tall with a diameter of 26 centimetres.
Her long-time coach and widower Nino Severino, who wed Ms Baltacha in 2013, said: "The loss of our darling Bally is a heartbreak that will never go away. It's very touching that the British Tennis family is remembering her this way.
"We're all working together to keep her legacy alive through the Elena Baltacha Academy of Tennis and getting more kids of all backgrounds playing tennis."
Judy Murray, Great Britain's Fed Cup captain, said: "This is a wonderful way to remember Bally. She was one of the best competitors I ever saw and had a lot of success at the Nottingham event. I know she would be thrilled with this."
The Aegon Open Nottingham will see two tournaments take place in June, with the women's WTA event running from June 8-14 and the men's ATP competition held from June 20-27.
Meanwhile, staff and pupils at the Elena Baltacha Academy of Tennis (EBAT) paid tribute to their "selfless" founder.
In a statement, the academy said: "A big thank you to everyone who has been involved in this wonderful project over the past 12 months, players, parents, staff and all who have been so kind to make a donation - everyone has played their part in keeping this dream alive and ensuring that Elena's vision and legacy continues.
"Over 9000 school children have been given an opportunity to pick up a racket over the past 12 months. Why? Because of Bally's vision and because of you. Every single donation helps - gives an opportunity, a dream."
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