Retired tennis player Anne Keothavong becomes a mother as she welcomed her first baby on Nov. 18. Keothavong shared a picture of her little one together with her husband to her followers on social media.

“Our best achievement to date,” Keothavong, who tied the knot with Andrew Bretherton after a brief engagement in February, wrote on Twitter. “Ava arrived yesterday a little earlier than expected and we couldn’t be happier.”

Fellow tennis stars immediately sent their well-wishes to the proud parent on the arrival of their newborn baby in the family. Australia’s Jarmila Gajdosova, former Russian tennis player Alina Jidkova and Julia Goerges were among those who tweeted their congratulation greetings.

The 32-year-old former Britain’s top-ranked tennis player achieved her career-high singles rank as World No. 48 in 2009, making her the first British tennis player to break the top 50 of the Women’s Tennis Association world rankings in 16 years. She played her last match against Garbine Muguruza in the first round of the Wimbledon Championships and retired from the game a month later in July 2013.

Keothavong had a 418-314 win-loss record in singles and 106-159 in doubles. She earned more than $1.3 million (approx. AU$ 1.81 million) in prize money during her career. Keothavong’s best grand slam results took place in the hard courts of the 2008 US Open. At the Australian Open, she reached the second round in 2011. She also reached the second round of Wimbledon thrice (2008, 2011, and 2013). At the Roland Garros tournament, Keothavong failed to progressed past the first round in all her four appearances.

Keothavong didn’t completely bid farewell to the sporting world of tennis as she became a part of BT Sport’s tennis coverage team. BT Sport is UK’s sports television channel owned by BT Group under the licence from ESPN.

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