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Former British number one Johanna Konta announced her retirement from tennis on this day in 2021.<\/p>\n
Konta, then 30, had struggled with a persistent knee problem and slipped to 113th in the rankings.<\/p>\n
She made the announcement on social media with a post headed \u2018Grateful\u2019.<\/p>\n
She wrote: \u201cThis is the word that I\u2019ve probably used the most during my career and is the word that I feel explains it best in the end.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy 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 \u2018making\u2019 it in this profession.<\/p>\n
\u201cHowever my luck materialised in the people that came into my life and impacted my existence in ways that transcended tennis.<\/p>\n
\u201cI 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.<\/p>\n
\u201cHow incredibly fortunate I count myself to be. How grateful I am.\u201d<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
A relatively late developer, Konta\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
Her best season was arguably in 2017, when she became the first British player since Virginia Wade to make the semi-finals at Wimbledon, won the biggest of her four career titles at the Miami Open, and peaked at fourth in the rankings.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Her final match was a three-set loss to Karolina Muchova at the Western and Southern Open in Cincinnati.<\/p>\n
She made no secret of her desire to start a family \u2013 something she did not want to do alongside her career \u2013 and gave birth to daughter Emmeline the following September.<\/p>\n