Her most recent tournament was a 10K tournament in Greece last October. It ended in a second round defeat to Dutch player Janneke Wikkerinke ranked 728 in the world. That was the final straw.
Amy Bowtell knew something was not right with her body but soldiered through it. That didn’t work. She took a month off. That didn’t work. She went to physiotherapy, did exercises. That didn’t work. All the time results fell into decline. At 21-years-old she was fast becoming the former Irish number one tennis player.
The last professional final she played was in an indoor 10k event in Sunderland on January 26th 2015 before the year became a whittling away of her WTA ranking down to an end of season 637. Now she is unranked and starting again. But this time it is different.
“My bone wasn’t fitting properly into my hip joint,” she says. “I had an extra bit on the inside which they couldn’t see. They only saw it when they went in. I had two tears in the labrum.
“One was small so they shaved it off. The bigger one had to be reattached back. So they shaved the bone that was causing impingement. You can’t bring your knee up to your chest because it gets caught. They shaved that and reshaped to top of the femur bone. It was quite big.”
Earlier this year her sister Anna was drafted into Ireland’s callow Federation Cup team, while her brother Mark is also a talented player, all of them emerging from their patch in Greystones, Wicklow.
But over the next few weeks Amy will hope to regain lost ground and climb back up the ranking ladder. The year so far has been one of drills with Gary Cahill in the National Tennis Acedemy and working in the gym.
The loss of her Irish number one status is irksome but there’s no drama. Playing again and being healthy is the first step. Bigger ambitions take their place behind that concept.
“The operation was at the beginning of December,” she says. “I was on crutches for two weeks but the last 6 months has been all rehab. I’m back hitting now. I didn’t touch my racquet for four months. That is probably the longest time since I was about five.
“I was 380 (ranking). It was unfortunate because when I got injured it was when I was starting to do well. At the end of 2014 I won two out of three weeks, coming up to the end of the year and then the first tournament in 2015 I won and I was starting to play well and I had some big wins in the Fed Cup. Then I got injured.
“I spent al lot of 2015 struggling. Something was going on and I wasn’t really sure what it was. I’d take three or four weeks off and go back but it wasn’t really getting better. Then I said I’ll play through it and then it was getting worse and thought I need to do something.
“The tournaments were just horrible. I couldn’t play. I don’t know what I was even doing. I retired in one, two I lost in two sets. I should have stopped. I didn’t want to stop. I just wanted to play. But I couldn’t play. I don’t know what I was doing. I’m finally glad to be fixed touch wood.”
There is a sense now of not fully knowing what the immediate future holds. Injuries are an industry hazard and predicting what shape her game will be in after transferring from hitting practice into a competitive environment is a mystery.
At 6 feet tall, she has the height of a modern professional but as well as strengthening the body, time out has also offered opportunity to work on weaknesses. Her left side, which was the side of the problematic hip and also where she had previous knee surgery, was the focus.
But there is enough from her past, wins along the way against players now gaining entry into bigger tournaments and Grand Slams that give encouragement.
Also Simon Carr’s early run at the professional game has been breaking new ground. If he gains entry to the Wimbledon Junior qualifiers he will be the youngest Irish player at 16-years-old to do so and with ATP points already earned is the youngest Irish player to have achieved that.
“I got to 380 so what can I do to get me to top 300, top 200, 150 or top 100,” she says. “We’ve been working on my power in backhand which I think was linked to my injury on the left side. It was my left knee and left hip I had the operations on. Serve speed as well and my movement. I didn’t move that well and struggled off balance.
“My goal is to be a top 100. I think that’s the goal of most players, to play main draw of Grand Slams and winning rounds. It’s hard to know how long it’s going to take me. Naomi Broady, she’s top 100 now. A year or two ago she was playing 10K’s in Egypt.
“Tara Moore (who was given a Wimbledon wildcard), she’s 280 now but was in the final of a 50K last week and at the start of the year was playing 10Ks in Turkey and wasn’t winning them. I’ve played against her. She has a big game and has the potential to do that and so does Broady. I think you just have to get the run of performance where it clicks that makes the difference.”
In the next couple of weeks Bowtell will take off to Portugal or Egypt for a hard court tournament. Wimbledon will come and go. Next year maybe Wimbledon will be in her sights. That would be progress.
