… climbs to 105 in latest WTA Rankings

SACHIA Vickery, fresh of her rise in the latest Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) to 105 in their latest World Rankings, said that she’s open to representing Guyana at the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo Japan.

This is welcome news for Guyana Olympic Association (GOA) president Juman-Yassin and Guyana Lawn Tennis Association (GLTA) president Jamal Goodluck.
“Of course, I’m open to representing Guyana at the Olympics,” Vickery said, speaking exclusively to Chronicle Sport on Thursday.

“It’s my home country and that would be something that’s a dream of mine in the future. Even though I wasn’t born in Guyana, I still consider myself Guyanese. I embrace the whole culture and I always love going back, so I do consider myself Guyanese,” said the 22-year-old who was born to Guyanese parents.

Vickery, born to Guyanese parents, former national football player Rawle Vickery from Linden and Paula Liverpool, also from Region 10, is on the verge of breaking the WTA’s Top 100 for the first time after she had the best week of her career in Auckland, New Zealand this past week. She not only reached the first WTA semi-final of her career, but also set a brand new career-high of No. 105 in the world.

Before this year, Vickery’s best showings at the WTA level were four quarterfinals, one per year the last four years – Stanford in 2014, Nottingham in 2015, Bogota in 2016 and Quebec City in 2017.

But in the very first week of the 2018 season, the 22-year-old Hollywood, Florida native surpassed all of those at the International-level ASB Classic, not dropping a set through three rounds of qualifying and another three rounds in the main draw – including upsets over No. 5 seed Lauren Davis and No. 4 seed Agnieszka Radwanska. She’d fallen to No. 1 seed Caroline Wozniacki in the semi-finals, 6-4, 6-4.

Vickery’s win over the No.28-ranked Radwanska was the best victory of her career. Her previous-best win in terms of ranking came against No.30-ranked Zhang Shuai at Stanford back in 2014.

The run pushed Vickery from No.122 to No.105 on the new rankings, leapfrogging her previous career-high of No.108 in the world, which she had originally set the week of July 20, 2015.
“This is great news,” said Yassin, when contacted by Chronicle Sport, but the GOA boss noted, “We want someone who would commit to not only the Olympics. They should now contact the GLTA so we could get things started. But this is something the GOA is happy about.”

Goodluck, the GLTA president, noted, “This is exciting news for us and we would like to welcome Sachia with open arms. Of course, we have to submit our names for the Commonwealth Games, and she will certainly be one of them.”
According to Goodluck, Vickery would be one of the country’s most high-profile players, and as such, the GLTA would like to ensure that she imparts her knowledge of the game to the up-and-coming players locally.

The defending Olympic champion, Monica Puig, born in Puerto Rico, is no stranger to Vickery, given the fact that they had faced each other three times in her career.
Vickery won the last meeting between the two (6-7, 6-2, 6-1), 2014 in the Round-of-16 WTA Stanford. However, at the tournament, Vickery lost to Varvara Lepchenko in the semi-finals. That tournament was won by Serena Williams.

Looking ahead, Vickery told Chronicle Sport, “I just want to keep improving my game, improving my strengths on the court and just becoming a better player so I can reach my goal, to be in the top 50. My goals for 2018 are to break into the top 100 and to be the main draw at the grand slams.”

Vickery is on the verge of becoming the 15th American woman in the Top 100 – the 14 that are currently in the Elite are led by Top 10 players Venus Williams (ranked No.5) and CoCo Vandeweghe (ranked No.10).