Elena Baltacha, who has died aged 30 from liver cancer, was Britain's No 1 female tennis player from 2009 until 2012. Universally popular and known to everyone as Bally, she had forged strong ties after arriving in Britain at the age of five when her father Sergei, a Soviet football international, signed to play for Ipswich Town. With a mother, Olga, who was a pentathlete and a brother, Sergei, who played football for St Mirren and Millwall, Bally had exceptional athletic genes but suffered from illness and injury throughout her tennis career.
She was born in Kiev, Ukraine, and her first years in Britain were spent in Ipswich, Suffolk, before the family moved to Perth (when her father signed for St Johnstone), then Paisley, where Elena went to Castlehead high school. She began playing tennis as a child, turned professional in 1997, and in 2001 made her Wimbledon debut, going out in the first round.
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