Emily Webley-Smith (born 14 July 1984) is a British professional tennis player.
She has a career-high WTA singles ranking of No. 240, achieved on 7 November 2011. She also has a best WTA doubles ranking of No. 113, set on 2 November 2015. Webley-Smith has won four singles titles and 26 doubles titles on the ITF Circuit. She has also reached the second round of her home Grand Slam, Wimbledon, on one occasion in 2004.
Personal life
Emily Webley-Smith was born in 1984 in Thornbury, Avon, which is now in South Gloucestershire. Her mother, Jane, is a PE teacher and her father, Mike, an amateur footballer and cricketer. She also has a sister named Hannah. Her first introduction to tennis was playing swingball in her garden and in the cricket grounds where her father was the club captain. She is coached by Jeremy Bates.
Webley-Smith plays right-handed with a two-handed backhand. Her favorite surface is grass.
In her spare time of late, she plays on the touchtennis tour against amateurs and other professional tennis players for fun. Her highest ranking was No. 2 in 2011.
Injury problems
Problems with Webley-Smith's right ankle began in 2002 when she broke it whilst on court competing in the qualifying tournament for the $25k ITF Circuit event in Cardiff and underwent surgery to repair both the bone and the damage caused to the ligaments. She was unable to compete on the tour for six months.
In November 2003, she needed a second operation on her ankle to remove cartilage which had come loose; an operation which was successful and enabled Emily to play injury-free tennis for almost two years.
However, she had to take yet more time out later in 2005 when she began experiencing sharp pains in the same ankle while warming up for an ITF tournament in Puebla, Mexico. She had treatment on the ankle again and returned, with limited success, to competitive tennis in spring 2006 before having surgery for a third time to remove fluid from her ankle.
She began recovering well before septicaemia left her unable to walk for five weeks. Webley-Smith said of the time, "My ankle was the size of a football. I remember the doctor trying to take my sock off and I was screaming. I was taking what they call an 'elephant dose' of antibiotics and the strongest painkillers they could give me". She returned full-time to the circuit in August 2006.
In 2009, she also began to have trouble with her wrist after injuring it during an ITF event in Tanjung Selor in Indonesia, just a number of weeks before Wimbledon. It recovered well enough in time for Webley-Smith to compete in the Wimbledon qualifying rounds however she reaggravated the injury later in the year and was unable to compete again until February 2010.
Career
Junior (1998–2002) Webley-Smith played her first junior ITF tournament in February 1998 and her last in July 2002. Over her junior career in singles, she reached a total of four quarterfinals, two semifinals and the final of the "Slazenger Appletise Winchester Junior Tournament". She competed at Wimbledon juniors a total of four times; in 1999, 2000 and 2001 she lost in the qualifying stages but in 2002 she reached the second round of the main draw. Her career-high singles ranking was world No. 119 (reached on 29 April 2002) and her win–loss record was 31–31.
In doubles, she won three tournaments, was a runner-up in another and also reached one semifinal and seven quarterfinals. Her doubles win–loss record was 22–27 and her career-high ranking was world No. 95 (achieved on 30 July 2001).
1999–2002
Webley-Smith played her first match on the ITF Women's Circuit in October 1999, a match which she lost 0–6, 0–6 against Melanie Schnell from Austria. It was her only professional match in 1999.
In 2000, she played a total of six tournaments. She lost in the qualifying rounds of four $10k events in Great Britain (Bournemouth, Frinton, Hatfield and Sunderland), lost in the first round of another (in Glasgow) and was also beaten in the first round of the $25k event in Felixstowe by fellow Brit Jane O'Donoghue, 4–6, 3–6.
The 2001 season began well for Webley-Smith as in her very first tournament of the year she qualified and reached the quarterfinals of the $10k event in Jersey before being beaten by Anne Keothavong, 6–3, 7–6. But she was unable to show this form for the rest of the year, losing in the qualifying stages in every other tournament she entered with the exception of the $10k Sunderland event where she was defeated again by Keothavong, 6–3, 6–4. She also played in the main draw of her final ITF tournament of the year as a lucky loser but was again beaten in round one. She ended the year ranked 712.