Former British No. 1 Johanna Konta announces her retirement, aged 30
Long-running tendon issue forces former world No. 4 to call it a day.
Former British No. 1 Johanna Konta has announced her retirement from playing, aged 30.
Konta has struggled with a persistent tendon issue in her right knee over the past couple of years and has slipped to 113 in the rankings.
The former world No. 4 made the announcement on social media with a post headed 'Grateful'.
She wrote: "This is the word that I've probably used the most during my career and is the word that I feel explains it best in the end.
"My playing career has come to an end, and I am so incredibly grateful for the career that it turned out to be. All the evidence pointed towards me not 'making' it in this profession.
"However my luck materialised in the people that came into my life and impacted my existence in ways that transcended tennis.
"I am so incredibly grateful for these people. You know who you are. Through my own resilience and through the guidance of others, I got to live my dreams. I got to become what I wanted and said as a child.
"How incredibly fortunate I count myself to be. How grateful I am."
Born in Australia to Hungarian parents, Konta moved to Europe to pursue her tennis career as a teenager, settling with her family in Eastbourne and becoming a British citizen in 2012.
A relatively late developer, Konta's emergence at the top of the game began in 2015, and the following year she reached her first grand slam semi-final at the Australian Open and climbed into the top 10.
Her best season was arguably in 2017, when she became the first British player since Virginia Wade to make the semi-finals at Wimbledon and won the biggest of her four career titles at the Miami Open. There she defeated Simona Halep, Venus Williams and Caroline Wozniacki in succession to help her peak at fourth in the rankings.
"I'm a poster child for people who ever feel too old to make it in anything," she said. "I'm a poster child for people who have been told they're nothing special or not that good or that their time is gone or they don't show that much promise. I'm a poster child for those players and those people who just base their career on resilience and on hard work."
Konta slipped down the rankings in 2018 but was resurgent the following year, making another grand slam semi-final at the French Open as well as quarter-finals at Wimbledon and the US Open.
Her final title came in the summer when she won the Viking Open in Nottingham.