Tennis: Anastasia proves real princess of the court

The 11-year-old sensation, from Duddingston, has captured the prestigious Tennis Europe under-12 title in Auray, France, without dropping a set to have her name engraved on a trophy alongside her illustrious predecessors like Henin, a seven times grand slam singles winner.

As a further mark of achievement the equivalent boys' title has previously been won by Rafael Nadal and Andy Murray.

Adding to Scottish tennis's success the 2010 Auray champion, Maia Lumsden, hails from Glasgow. Little wonder that pride was easily detectable in Marcel du Coudray, head coach at the Scottish Tennis Academy where Anastasia is expected to resume training after spending the start of this week hitting at the national academy in Roehampton.

Says Du Coudray, who is quick to highlight the role played by Anastasia's Muscovite father, Andrei, who came to Scotland several years ago to study for a Phd at Edinburgh University and remained to set up an IT company: "The Auray tournament has been described as an unofficial world championship of age-group tennis and certainly it is a bench mark for where kids are at in their year.

"Obviously this has proved just how much talent Anastasia has but it's a rocky road to the top and the next step is to keep working hard."Fortunately she really loves, above all else, just being on a tennis court.

"Of course rewards are important but it is great to see Anastasia get her feel-good factor from hitting tennis balls for the sake of being out there on court."

Often Anastasia practices with her dad and Du Coudray added: "The relationship between the pair of them is ideal.

"On court they are practice and training partners but as soon as the session ends Andrei goes back to being a Dad and Anastasia goes back to being a daughter.

"If that works well it is clearly the case that the system here in Scotland appears to be very good with a lot of people doing good work but within the game nobody is getting carried away.

"These are early days for both Anastasia and Maia and while the Auray tournament is important you don't get rich or WTA ranking points at under-12 level."

Until recently Anastasia - who beat Anna Slovakova of the Czech Republic 6-1, 7-5 in Sunday's final, winning her sixth consecutive match of the week in straight sets - attended Duddingston Primary before moving to the Scottish Tennis Academy which is attached to St George's School and Merchiston Castle School.

After winning her opening three matches for the loss of just four games, Anastasia won 6-4, 6-4 against Italian Debora Ginocchio followed by a 6-1, 7-6 (4) defeat of Marketa Vondrousova in the semi-final.

In the final Anastasia dominated from the outset with her aggressive baseline game and coped well with her opponent's cleverly disguised drop shots.

In front of over 1200 spectators Anastasia resisted a fightback in the second set to wrap up victory for the second year running for a British girl.

LTA age group captain, John Trehearn said: "Anastasia had a tough draw and didn't lose a set, but even when she was 5-1 down in the second set of her semi-final, she refused to lose. That's a great mentality."