Rebecca Llewellyn (born 5 October 1985) is a retired
tennis
Tennis is a racket sport that is played either individually against a single opponent ( singles) or between two teams of two players each ( doubles). Each player uses a tennis racket that is strung with cord to strike a hollow rubber ball ...
player from Wales.
In her career, she won one title in singles and seven in doubles on the
ITF Women's Circuit
The ITF Women's World Tennis Tour, previously known as the ITF Women's Circuit, is a series of professional tennis tournaments run by the International Tennis Federation for female professional tennis players.
History
It serves as a developmental ...
. She reached career-high rankings of world No. 280 in singles and No. 309 in doubles. She has not competed professionally since 2007.
Career
Playing style
Rebecca began playing tennis aged seven in school. In 2003, she graduated from Haileybury High School.
She played right-handed and cited her favourite shots as the
backhand
The backhand is a shot used in most racket sports, such as tennis and pickleball, where the back of the hand precedes the palm when swinging the racket. Except in the phrase ''backhand volley'', the term refers to a groundstroke (where th ...
and the
volley. Her preferred playing surfaces were
grass
Poaceae () or Gramineae () is a large and nearly ubiquitous family of monocotyledonous flowering plants commonly known as grasses. It includes the cereal grasses, bamboos and the grasses of natural grassland and species cultivated in lawns an ...
and
clay
Clay is a type of fine-grained natural soil material containing clay minerals (hydrous aluminium phyllosilicates, e.g. kaolin, Al2 Si2 O5( OH)4).
Clays develop plasticity when wet, due to a molecular film of water surrounding the clay par ...
.
Junior years (1999–2003)
Llewellyn played her first match on the junior ITF circuit in February 1999 and her last in June 2003 in the
Junior Wimbledon Championships. Her best performances in singles came when she reached two semifinals of lower-tier junior events in 2000. She also reached the quarterfinals in one other event. In terms of Grand Slam success, her best singles result came at
Wimbledon in 2000 when she won two matches to qualify and then went on to reach the second round. By the end of her junior career, she ended with a singles win–loss record of 11–14 and a career-high ranking of world No. 234 (achieved 25 June 2001).
As a junior doubles player she was a runner-up on one occasion. She was also a doubles semifinalist on another occasion. Rebecca competed in doubles at a Grand Slam only once, at
the 2001 Wimbledon Championships, where she and compatriot
Katie O'Brien
Katie Jill O'Brien (born 2 May 1986) is a British former professional tennis player from Beverley, Yorkshire. She was briefly the British No. 1 tennis player, and reached her career-high singles ranking of world No. 84 on 1 February 2010. She w ...
were knocked out in round one. She ended her junior career with a win–loss record of 5–7 in doubles and a career-high doubles ranking of world No. 410 (achieved 16 April 2001).
[
]
Professional years
Llewellyn took part in the 2005 Wimbledon Championships, but lost 0–6, 1–6 to the fifth seed Svetlana Kuznetsova
Svetlana Aleksandrovna Kuznetsova (born 27 June 1985) is a Russian inactive professional tennis player. She is a two-time major singles champion, winning the 2004 US Open and 2009 French Open, and finishing runner-up at two other majors. I ...
. In doing so, she became the first player from Wales
Wales ( cy, Cymru ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by England to the Wales–England border, east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the ...
to compete in singles since Sarah Loosemore
Sarah Loosemore (born 15 June 1971) is a retired professional tennis player from Wales. She is now a qualified solicitor.
Born in Cardiff but brought up in Dinas Powys by solicitor father John (Grandy) and tennis coach mother Pam (Nanny), Loo ...
in 1992
File:1992 Events Collage V1.png, From left, clockwise: 1992 Los Angeles riots, Riots break out across Los Angeles, California after the Police brutality, police beating of Rodney King; El Al Flight 1862 crashes into a residential apartment buildi ...
. She also competed in the doubles event at the 2005
File:2005 Events Collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: Hurricane Katrina in the Gulf of Mexico; the Funeral of Pope John Paul II is held in Vatican City; "Me at the zoo", the first video ever to be uploaded to YouTube; Eris was discovered in ...
and the 2006 Wimbledon Championships
The 2006 Wimbledon Championships was a tennis tournament played on grass courts at the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club in Wimbledon, London in the United Kingdom. It was the 120th edition of the Wimbledon Championships and were held fr ...
, losing in the first round each time.
ITF Circuit titles (8)
Singles (1)
Doubles (7)
ITF runner-ups (4)
Singles (1)
Doubles (3)
References
External links
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Llewellyn, Rebecca
1985 births
Living people
British female tennis players
Welsh female tennis players
Sportspeople from Cardiff
People from Welwyn