Johanna Konta shoots up to new high after Miami magic

Briton climbs up the rankings after ace show in the States

The 24th seed, Johanna Konta, set up a third-round meeting with Russian qualifier Elena Vesnina (Getty)

Johanna Konta’s remarkable rise continued today as the 24-year-old Briton climbed to a career-best No 21 in the women's world rankings. Konta, who was not even in the world’s top 150 at this time last year, can make even more progress in the coming weeks as she has few ranking points to defend until the grass-court season.

Konta would have made it into the world’s top 20 if she had won her final match at last week’s Miami Open, but had the misfortune to run into the player of the moment. The first British woman to reach the quarter-finals in Miami, Konta was eventually beaten in straight sets by Victoria Azarenka, who went on to become the first woman to complete the back-to-back double of the Indian Wells and Miami tournaments since Kim Clijsters in 2005. Azarenka herself is back up to No 5 in the world rankings.

This time last year Konta was not ranked high enough to make into even the smallest tournaments on the main Women’s Tennis Association circuit, let alone the bigger events like Miami, where she has just competed for the first time.

In April last year Konta played in three successive International Tennis Federation tournaments in the United States where the total prize money for each event – for all the players involved – was either $25,000 (about £17,600) or $50,000 (about £35,100). Konta lost in the final, semi-finals and second round to opponents ranked No 261, No 140 and No 276 respectively.

Those results are difficult to believe in the light of her subsequent efforts over the last 12 months. In that time Konta has reached the fourth round of the US Open (only the second Briton to do so since 1991) and the semi-finals of the Australian Open (the first Briton to do so since Sue Barker in 1977). She has also claimed a succession of notable scalps, including those of Simon Halep (world No 2 at the time), Ekaterina Makarova (world No 8) and Garbine Muguruza (world No 9).

While being ranked at No 21 will guarantee Konta a seeding at Grand Slam events, she could continue climbing. To reach the last 16 by the time of the French Open, which starts at the end of May, would be a significant achievement in that it would guarantee she could not meet any of the top players until the fourth round.

That goal is by no means impossible. The rankings are based on a rolling points total over the previous 12 months. Of her present total of 2,225 points, Konta has only 127 to defend between now and the start of the grass-court season. Playing in the biggest tournaments, which her ranking now enables her to do, offers the opportunity to earn many more points. In Miami last week, for example, her three victories were worth a total of 215 points.

For the next nine weeks the tour will focus on clay-court tournaments, beginning with this week’s event in Charleston, South Carolina, though Konta is taking a short break before returning to competition.

Although Konta has not had any significant success on clay in the past she showed plenty of fight at last year’s French Open, where she won three matches in qualifying before losing in the first round to the Czech Republic’s Denisa Allertova. In 2014 she fell in the third round of qualifying, which was one round further than she had gone on her debut at Roland Garros the previous year.