Career-high world ranking of 26 for Johanna Konta

The British No.1 and Australian Open semi-finalist is back in action Monday in the Mexico Open first round. It will be her first match since losing to Angelique Kerber in Melbourne.

Konta, also revealed she was glad she did not receive the same media attention as her parents during her brilliant Australian Open run. She beatVenus Williams and Ekaterina Makarova on her way to the semi-finals of the year’s first grand slam before succumbing to eventual champion Kerber.

Konta was the first British woman to make the last four in singles at a slam since Jo Durie in 1983. Her success increased her profile back home, but Konta - in an interview on the Jonathan Ross Show, which was broadcast on Saturday said,

“It did help that I was halfway around the world and there is an 11-hour time difference. I also stay quite removed from social media. I didn’t really want to know what was going on and my parents had a bit of a hard time, they had their doorbell ringing with journalists every two hours so they closed the curtains, turned all the lights off and pretended they weren’t home. So it was definitely different here.”

Konta is on target to be seeded at Wimbledon, where there will be no hiding from the spotlight. But the 24-year-old is confident she will not feel extra pressure or scrutiny.

She said: “Knowing myself I’d like to think (I won’t). I play tennis because I love it as a sport, I love competing, I think it’s the best job. I feel very fortunate to be doing it so, in terms of external things taking my attention away from it, I wouldn’t think so.”