British tennis player Johanna Konta has said that she nearly dropped out of tennis when she was younger.
The 24-year-old shocked ninth seed Garbine Muguruza in a straight-sets victory at the US Open yesterday, but she says that she could have become an athlete instead.
"I don't know if I would have been a swimmer, but my dad said he would have wanted me to do that if I hadn't had ear infections," Konta told BT Sport.
"I did a bit of athletics, I was an 800m runner. I won my district and I made it to state, but I actually never went because I was training for tennis. I've got the ribbons.
"With tennis, my mum played a bit and my uncle still plays to this day, so tennis was always around, but the only reason I started playing was that there was a tennis centre right next to my primary school in Australia."
Konta had previously never progressed past the first round of a Grand Slam tournament.
Jonathan McIntosh
