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Britain’s number one ranked women’s doubles player Alicia Barnett has said she is returning to Wimbledon for the second time with “no expectations”.
The 29-year-old made her debut at the All England Club last year as a wildcard entrant.
She reached the quarter-finals of the mixed doubles event and second round of the women’s doubles.
Barnett is now ranked number 68 in the world and will compete again in both events, starting next week.
“I’m going in just trying to enjoy being there because it’s not every day you can play at Wimbledon,” Barnett told BBC Points West.
“You go into every tournament wanting to do the best you can and win the tournament, but I’m not going to go in with any expectations.
“I want to focus on improving every day and I feel like I have improved since last year.
“But at the end of the day tennis is an interesting sport; you can beat anyone, you can lose to anyone and it just depends on what happens on the day.”
A ‘surreal’ year
Barnett, from Painswick, Gloucestershire, made headlines last summer when, along with mixed doubles partner Jonny O’Mara, they knocked Venus Williams and Jamie Murray out of Wimbledon to reach the last eight.
With her regular women’s doubles partner, Olivia Nicholls, the duo have since gone on to compete in all of the Grand Slams over the past 12 months, making debuts at the US Open, Australian Open and recent French Open.
“It’s been a very surreal year and I don’t think it’s quite sunk in yet,” Barnett continued.
“It was really fun and many years of hard work has started to pay off. It was an amazing experience last year – Wimbledon especially, playing in front of friends and family was really special so I’m looking forward to that again this year.”
Barnett and Nicholls train at the University of Bath and their coach, Ian MacDonald, has seen growth in all aspects of their game this past year.
“One is the experience side of things and getting used to being on the tour, being at the top of the game, which is an adjustment, and you’ve got to get used to playing the best in the world and playing in big arenas and people watching,” MacDonald said.
“The process side of the game, I like to think every area has improved. As a pair they’ve grown a lot and I think now are establishing their game style and being able to put that on the court against some of the best in the world.”
Barnett goes into Wimbledon having won her first title of the year with Nicholls at W60 Trnava in Slovakia in March. The duo were also beaten finalists at the Surbiton Trophy earlier this month and reached the semi-finals of the Nottingham Open and more tournaments across Europe.
“We’ve had some really good runs in the last few weeks in Portugal and Germany, making semi-finals so hopefully we can do one better,” Barnett concluded.
