Physical Health versus World Standing - Boulter's Melbourne Grand Slam Dilemma

British Katie Boulter states she believes she has to "decide between my physical condition and my professional position" as the competition continues for a position in next January's Australian Open primary competition.

While the standard WTA Tour tournament schedule is completed, there are still position points to be earned in South American nations, neighboring countries, multiple sites and France.

The women's competitor lineup for the first Grand Slam of the forthcoming season will be calculated from the international positions of the December cutoff, which could create a difficult choice for players near the qualification line.

Injury Concerns

Ex- British number one Boulter experienced an abductor in her final event of the year in international locations last timeframe, and is now weighing up whether to compete in the WTA 125 development competition in European venues, the continental destination, in the first week of December.

The athlete's ongoing health concern, and the fact she would need to achieve at least several wins in the European event to improve her standing, means she may probably eventually not participating.

Varying Approaches

In opposition, men's competitors are not confronting the identical dilemma, as for the first time the men's Australian Open participant roster will be drawn up from present week's standings, which is the ATP's official season-concluding ranking date.

The change is intended to discouraging players from pursuing position points during what is fundamentally the break period.

Coaching Changes

This year has been a challenging one for Boulter.

She achieved merely fourteen professional primary competition matches and currently split with coach Biljana Veselinovic after a lengthy collaboration in which she won several WTA championships.

"Biljana is an exceptional instructor, and an extremely good person as well, which produces circumstances extremely hard," Boulter stated.

The search for a new instructor is well under way, looking for someone who has high-level expertise as Boulter continues to think she can be a world-class athlete.

Future Goals

"Moving ahead with a different trainer, one thing I'm very clear on is that they are going to be someone who has considerable expertise in how to make it to the very top level of this profession," she stated.

"I've been positioned as advanced as twenty-three and I know I can climb back there. I don't believe my standard has disappeared, I believe the reliability needs to develop.

"My aim is not simply to be positioned 50, forty, thirty, twenty - we've accomplished that. The objective is to be within the top twenty."