New Malden’s Melanie South is hoping to put a miserable twelve months behind her when she takes her place in the First Round at Wimbledon next week.

The 24-year-old has seen her world ranking slump from a career-high 99 in 2009 to a current slot of 221, and endured spells of injury and sickness along the way.

But with the world’s media about to descend on SW19, South reckons things are once again on the up.

She said: “I certainly think I am playing as well as I did when I cracked the world top 100.

“It has just been a lot of factors that have affected me.

“I went out to Korea and Japan earlier this year to try and get things moving but I had a bad bout of sickness while I was there and that really set me back.

“But the last three weeks have been really good and I feel a lot better about things.”

South has been granted a wild card for the tournament, surviving the cull that the LTA enforced after recent British failures.

But the Kingston-born star had no qualms over the hardline stance taken by the governing body.

South added: “I think it needed to be done to be honest.

“They laid out the criteria you needed to achieve and I did that.

“Even if I hadn’t been given a wild card, I would have just accepted it and gone into the qualifying competition.”

South will be cheered on by an army of family and friends when she makes her First Round bow.

And the British number five admitted Wimbledon fortnight is always an event that gets ringed on the calendar.

South added: “I really enjoy this time of year.

“Grass is my favourite surface and being around you family is always a good thing.

“I have will have a lot of people coming to watch me play and I will do my best to make them happy.”