IT has been a long and often painful journey for Alexandra Stevenson.

The American, who created history by becoming the first female qualifier to reach the semi-finals at Wimbledon in 1999, has lost the latter part of her career to a shoulder injury that normally only afflicts baseball pitchers.

However, the Californian, who is now 35, is finally free from her injury woes and is ready to battle back from her current world ranking of 594.

She may not have been successful in the AEGON Ilkley Trophy qualifying yesterday, losing 7-5, 6-4 to ninth seed Rebecca Sramkova (Slovakia), but that fearsome Stevenson serve is a weapon again, as she proved by firing in 68 per cent of her initial deliveries.

"Alexandra is the only female player to have ever come back from this injury," said her mother Samantha, a former journalist who is writing a book about their tennis travels.

Stevenson had only just graduated from La Jolla Country Day School when she reached the quarter-finals in Birmingham and the semi-finals at Wimbledon 17 years ago, where she defeated eighth seed Julie Halard, Lisa Raymond (who played at Ilkley last year) after saving a match point, and Jelena Dokic before losing to eventual champion Lindsay Davenport.

Samantha added: "No-one has a serve like Alexandra."

Her second serve was once reckoned to be the fastest in women's tennis at between 105mph and 115mph, and Alexandra confessed: "I used to watch Wimbledon on television and thought it looked exciting, but unfortunately the courts at Ilkley were a bit muddy."

The day, which was curtailed at 4pm by a heavy rainstorm, was not without British success.

Lisa Whybourn and Katy Dunne are through to the final qualifying round, with Whybourn beating Japanese duo Misa Eguchi, the top seed, 6-3, 7-5 and Shuko Aoyama 6-2, 6-3.

Dunne, 21, defeated sixth seed Catalina Pella (Argentina) 2-6, 6-3, 6-1 and fellow Brit Jazzamay Drew 6-2, 6-3.

In the final qualifying round of the men's singles, former Ilkley British Tour runner-up Joe Salisbury battled well but was outplayed in the tie-break 7-2 by Poland's Michal Przysiezny before the heavens opened.