Maia Lumsden, the 14-year-old from Glasgow, earned her first world ranking points at senior level when she won her final qualifying round match at the AEGON Pro-Series $25,000 Challenger at Scotstoun, Glasgow, yesterday.
She trounced Fatma Al-Nahbani, the second seed in the qualifying competition from Oman, 6-3, 6-0. One break of serve was all she needed to take the first set against a player with a world ranking of No.463 and Al-Nahbani's game then collapsed under relentless pressure from the young Scot. The win earns Lumsden a tie against England's Lisa Whybourn, the world No.298, in the main draw today.
Lumsden, delighted with her win and her first world ranking points at senior level, said that her plan had been "to be tactically smart and that had worked well". She added: "I loved the experience of playing on the show court especially in my home town and am looking forward to playing in my first Challenger main draw."
Lumsden, who trains at the National Tennis Centre at Stirling University and attends the nearby Beaconhurst School, has enjoyed a successful year in junior competition across Europe this year which have earned her the No.1 spot in the Tennis Europe 14 & Under rankings. She led Great Britain to success in the European Summer Cup in Italy, the girls' team championships while, at the World Championships in Czech Republic, Great Britain were runners-up to Slovakia.
Glasgow's Jamie Baker, seeded No.2 in the men's Futures event, was a 6-2, 6-2 winner over England's Sean Thornley and plays Yannick Ebbinghaus, of the Netherlands, in the second round today.
Broughty Ferry-based Nicholas Rosenzweig, a student at Stirling University, had a three-set win over Clay Crawford, winner of the ITF junior event in Edinburgh this summer. He plays the No.8 seed, Neil Pauffley of England, in the second match on the show court today, starting around 11.30am, followed by Lumsden and then Baker.
Play starts at 10am and entry to the spectators' stand is free.
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