THONGSBRIDGE tennis star Holly Horsfall has broken through to earn a junior world ranking.

It’s an impressive step for the 15-year-old from Hepworth and follows a series of strong performances in International Tennis Federation events this year.

Now, the Holmfirth High student has seven more ITF events on her calendar, two in Montenegro this month, two in the Republic of Ireland and three in the UK, where she’ll be bidding to improve her world ranking of 1907.

Playing the game since she was four, Horsfall has consistently improved under Thongsbridge head coach Nick Fitzpatrick and her own performance coach Tom Sanders, and the last 12 months have been superb.

At the start of last summer, she won the prestigious Nottingham Open Under 16 title, a national tournament, and then won the Yorkshire ‘Road to Wimbledon’ event which took her to the national final. These were played at Roehampton due to the Olympics at Wimbledon, but third seed Horsfall reached the final only to lose a close match to the top-ranked player.

Undeterred, she went on to win the doubles, so her name is now on the Roll of Honour at Wimbledon.

Her run of form has taken her to a ranking position in Great Britain of No 4 in the Under 16s, while she’s been No1 in Yorkshire for the past three years.

Horsfall played her first ITF Under 18 competition in Austria in January, losing in a tough first round match.

At Easter, she played the ITF in Nottingham, where she faced the No11 seed Alexandra Borg of Norway. This was an extremely close match where the Holme Valley girl took the first set 6-3, lost the second set 6-4 and won the third 7-6 to take the match.

She was knocked out of the singles in the last 32, but she played the doubles with her French partner Cindy Castille and progressed to the semi-finals.

These successes moved her onto the world junior listings.

Bengal Spice restaurant of Holmfirth have just confirmed they will continue to back her career.

It’s a third year of backing and, over that time, the restaurant have donated over £1,500 to help purchase kit and rackets.