Pellicano is Malta’s highest ranked player on WTA list

Helene Pellicano broke new ground in her tennis career when she became the highest-ranked Maltese player in the Women’s Tennis Association ranking list  published yesterday.

Following her excellent performances in recent tournaments on the ITF circuit, the 15-year-old was included in the WTA list for the first time and was ranked 914th in the world, which is the highest position ever attained by a Maltese player.

In fact, the only other two players who ever made the WTA list before were Kimberly Cassar, who was 1,034th in 2011, and Elaine Genovese. She is currently ranked 1,226th.

Pellicano’s decision to further her career at the Lozano Altur Tennis Academy, in Valencia, is starting to reap the desired dividends as she has shown a lot of promise and more spirited play in recent weeks.

The claycourt specialist made her first appearance in the ITF Circuit at the Getxo tournament.

After comfortably negotiating her first two qualifying round matches against Moldova’s Iana Tishchenko and Spain’s Dalila Said, Pellicano also eliminated Alicia Herrero Linana 6-4 7-5 but then lost to Olga Saez Larra, of Spain, 7-5 6-1.

Her efforts though were still enough to pick up her first ranking...