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Keothavong admits to feeling huge Wimbledon pressure

ESPN staff
June 7, 2010
Anne Keothavong sees grass as her worst surface © Getty Images
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Anne Keothavong has bemoaned the level of pressure that British players are put under to perform at Wimbledon, while head of women's tennis at the LTA Nigel Sears has launched a scathing attack on attitudes shown toward British players.

World No. 154 Keothavong, whose game is best suited to the harder surfaces, has never got beyond the second round on any of her nine visits to Wimbledon - a statistic she claims she is "desperate" to improve upon.

"I'm so desperate to do well even though grass is my weakest surface," Keothavong told the Times. "You do feel you've let people down. Everyone expects British players to do well on grass, but we don't play on it any more than foreigners who come over for the grass court season. We don't get any more preparation than anyone else."

Meanwhile Sears, who has seen four British girls break into the top 100 of the women's game over his three years in the job, feels that there is more negativity surrounding the game than is warranted.

"In America they get behind their sports people, but here there is a sustained level of negative crap," he said. "It gets really tedious after a while. Just look at Andy Murray - a few months ago he was in the final of a Grand Slam and now he's in crisis. It's ridiculous."

© ESPN Sports Media Ltd.
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