Liggan gets lift from back-to-back victories

Irish Times/Vhi Healthcare Sports Woman Of The Year August award: Kelly Liggan has become accustomed to experiencing extreme highs and lows in her professional tennis career, but in a three-week period in August she felt like she had gone through it all.

From the highs of winning back-to-back tournaments in Spain and Portugal to the desperate disappointment of having to retire injured from her US Open qualifier, when she was leading 4-3 in the opening set, it has been a test of character for the Irish number one.

And, having had to battle back from several injuries during her career, including a fractured ankle, Liggan is now out of action for a month, just as she was regaining lost ground in the world rankings. Liggan slipped a disc when leading Poland's Agnieszka Radwanska at Flushing Meadows, thus ending her dreams of reaching the main draw.

"It was very tough because coming off winning two tournaments I went there with a lot of confidence," said the 27-year-old. "It was bad luck, I know that, but I have to take the positives from it all, I was playing my best tennis ever and I think I can get back to that. It's just a case of keeping working hard."

Liggan, who was born in Ireland but grew up in Spain, is based in Marbella (hence her admission "my accent is all over the place"), and it is to the resort she has returned to recover from her injury. "I'm getting better slowly, I should be back within a month, so that's not too bad, it could have been a lot worse."

Her form in early August, when she won two $25,000 International Tennis Federation hard-court tournaments (the third and fourth ITF titles of her career), is, she says, what is keeping her spirits up, making her all the more eager to return to action. The first of the wins came in Vigo, Spain, when, seeded fourth, she took the title without dropping a set in five rounds.

A week later, in Coimbra, Portugal, where she was the eighth seed, she beat top seed Arantxa Parra Santonja 6-0, 6-0 in the quarter-finals, going on to complete her back-to-back victories with a straight-sets win over Romanian Monica Niculescu in the final.

Liggan collected 50 ranking points from the two successes, lifting her to 183 in the world rankings, just two short of her highest ever placing in September 2003. By Mauresmo and Sharapova standards the ranking might be modest; by Irish standards it's significantly more than creditable.

"August was brilliant, it just felt like all my hard work had paid off, it really was the best tennis I had ever played," she said. "A lot of it, I believe, is down to the fact I changed coaches, my coach now is Spanish, a former pro. I just feel I have a really great connection with the guy, he seems to understand me as a person, and I just feel way more relaxed when I go out to play."

The month ahead, she insists, won't be about relaxation, rather the effort to recover as quickly as possible and get back to playing. It is, though, a break from the ceaseless travelling which has been part of her life for over a decade. "Now that I'm here (in Marbella) I feel 'my God, I'm not going anywhere', which is very strange," she laughs. Get thee to the beach. "I will, I will," she promises.

Overall contenders so far:

Jessica Kürten (Equestrian): A near flawless start to the year, which featured seven successive international wins, lifted Kürten to second in the world rankings.

Derval O'Rourke (Athletics): Gold at the World Indoor Championships in March, silver at the European Championships last month. . . what more can we say?

Madeline Perry (Squash): Rose to a career high of sixth in the world rankings in the early half of the year.

Nina Carberry (Horse racing): Crowned champion amateur for the first time in April, was one of only nine finishers in the Aintree Grand National and won her first Grade One race at the Punchestown Festival.

Fiona Connery (Hockey): The Hermes defender won her 50th cap for Ireland at April's World Cup Qualifier in Rome, named player of the tournament in the All-Ireland League play-offs, and finished season with All-Ireland, Irish Senior Cup and Leinster League winners' medals.

Sinéad Jennings and Niamh Ní Cheilleachair (Rowing): The pair won bronze in the lightweight double sculls final at the second leg of the World Cup in Poznan, Poland, the first medal at senior international level for an Irish women's crew in an Olympic-class boat. They wotheir B final at the world championships in Eton a month later.

Joanne Cuddihy (Athletics): The Kilkenny athlete won the 200 and 400 metres double at the national championships in July and last month, in Gothenburg, became the first Irish woman to make a European 400-metre final since Maeve Kyle in 1962.

Each sportswoman is eligible for just one monthly award in 2006 but her achievements through the year will be taken into account by the panel of judges when the decision on the overall winner is made.