{"id":657630,"date":"2026-06-25T14:29:20","date_gmt":"2026-06-25T14:29:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/657630\/"},"modified":"2026-06-25T14:29:20","modified_gmt":"2026-06-25T14:29:20","slug":"second-player-from-hove-tennis-club-reaches-wimbledon-brighton-and-hove-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/657630\/","title":{"rendered":"Second player from Hove tennis club reaches Wimbledon \u2013 Brighton and Hove News"},"content":{"rendered":"

A second woman from a Hove club has made it to Wimbledon for the world\u2019s oldest tennis tournament.<\/p>\n

Alicia Dudeney, 23, first played at the Pav and Ave (Pavilion and Avenue) Tennis Club, in The Droveway, Hove, 16 years ago.<\/p>\n

And like fellow club member Sonay Kartal, she has soared up the rankings, climbing more than 800 places, as she prepares to make her Wimbledon debut next week.<\/p>\n

Dudeney hopes to inspire other young British women to take the college route into professional tennis after her rapid rise earned her a Wimbledon wild card into the main draw. Former champion Serena Williams, 44, has also been given a wild card.<\/p>\n

She has a wild card for the doubles too, partnering fellow Briton Mimi Xu, 18, alongside five other British pairs and the sport\u2019s most formidable sisters Serena Williams and 46-year-old Venus Williams.<\/p>\n

Dudeney, from Hove, will make her professional debut at the All England Club having risen from outside the top 1,000 in the rankings a year ago to 246.<\/p>\n

In the 13 months since graduating from Florida University, Dudeney has won seven lower-tier titles and she will be the only first-timer of six British players given wild cards into the women\u2019s singles.<\/p>\n

She will also be the sole player to have delayed turning professional to go to college in America \u2013 a route that has become almost the norm for British men but less common for women.<\/p>\n

Dudeney has no doubt that it was the right decision, telling the Press Association: \u201cI had the best time out there. It was definitely a very valuable experience for me. The tennis out there is amazing.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have really high-level players now that are transitioning on to the tour but just the experience helps you grow so much as a person.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I finished last May I was ready to travel on my own and the daily grind of what the tour consists of, which I definitely wouldn\u2019t have been able to do at 18, so it was an invaluable experience for me.<\/p>\n

\u201cI definitely think in the last few years it\u2019s become a lot more popular. A lot of Brits now are going out there. It\u2019s such a good route. I definitely would recommend it to anyone.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dudeney\u2019s only previous Wimbledon experience was a run to the quarter-finals of the girls\u2019 singles in 2021 while her first senior win on grass came at the WTA 125 event in Ilkley earlier this month.<\/p>\n

But she is very familiar with the All England Club having visited as a child before supporting friends Sonay Kartal and McCartney Kessler in recent years,<\/p>\n

American Kessler was a team-mate of Dudeney\u2019s at college and has gone on to reach the top 30 while she grew up playing at the Pav and Ave alongside Kartal.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Alicia Dudeney<\/p>\n

Roles will be reversed this year, with Kartal sidelined by a back injury, but Dudeney has taken great inspiration from the 24-year-old\u2019s success, including a run to the fourth round at Wimbledon last year.<\/p>\n

Dudeney said: \u201cI\u2019ve been at college a lot of the time but I\u2019ve always followed everything she\u2019s done.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s so amazing. Ben (Reeves), her coach, I also grew up with as well so to see them doing so incredibly well feels so close to home for me.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s especially motivating \u2013 \u2018I can do that\u2019 \u2013 but also, as a friend, it\u2019s just really heartwarming to see her do so well because she really does deserve it so much.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s every British player\u2019s dream to play Wimbledon. It\u2019s such a magical place. The last few years I\u2019ve gone to watch Sonay and McCartney so I\u2019ve watched a lot of tennis matches there over the years.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I was small, we\u2019d go to Eastbourne a lot and I\u2019d be the little kid with the big tennis ball that would run around and get everyone with a tennis bag to sign it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dudeney has gained confidence from her recent success and hopes she can rise to the occasion in SW19.<\/p>\n

She said: \u201cWhen you haven\u2019t played the bigger tournaments and you go in not knowing what it\u2019s like, you can think the level is so much higher than it actually is.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut then, once you actually get here and play it, you\u2019re like, \u2018Oh, these girls are really good but it\u2019s not a crazy different level to what you\u2019re used to\u2019, which is great to see.\u201d<\/p>\n

Her first match \u2013 in the singles first round \u2013 is due to take place either next Monday (29 June) or Tuesday (30 June), with the doubles first round scheduled to start on Thursday and Friday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A second woman from a Hove club has made it to Wimbledon for the world\u2019s oldest tennis tournament.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":657631,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[101,118,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-657630","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-sports","tag-tennis","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/657630","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=657630"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/657630\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/657631"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=657630"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=657630"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=657630"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}