Annabel Croft (born 12 July 1966 in Farnborough, London, England) is a former tennis player and television presenter. Her tennis career really took off after she won Junior Wimbledon in 1984.
Since retiring from tennis, she has turned to television presenting, with such shows as Treasure Hunt and Interceptor. In 2005, she appeared in the ITV programme Celebrity Wrestling and went on to win it.
Background[]
Annabel Croft is a mother of three and a well-known sports personality on UK satellite/cable television. She is known in particular for her role as studio anchor for tennis coverage on satellite and cable TV in the UK. A former British junior tennis champion she developed a successful media career initially as the face of Channel 4’s Treasure Hunt, following Anika Rice's successful run, and ITV’s Interceptor (TV series). In 2003 she was involved in coverage of Wimbledon for the BBC, Radio 5 Live and GMTV.
Annabel retired from professional tennis at the age of twenty-one. Immediately after her retirement, Annabel became the new face of Channel 4’s prime time show Treasure Hunt. This was followed by her own show on ITV called Interceptor.
She has appeared on UK lifestyle TV shows such as The Matthew Wright Show, The Entertainment Show, GMTV, Out and About, and This Morning.
She has twice appeared on TV acting as the assistant to a magician. The first was in October 1989, when she made a guest appearance on the ITV magic show The Best of Magic, when she was sawed in half by visiting guest magician Channing Pollock in his Thin Model sawing. The second was in May 1992, when she appeared as a guest on magician Wayne Dobson's ITV show A Kind of Magic, where she was sawed in half while standing up in a vertical cabinet in what was an early predecessor to the later Modern Art standing sawing.
She has successfully completed the New York marathon.
She has been active in raising awareness of child obesity.
Trivia[]
- She didn't get her ears pierced until 2007, when she had them pierced at the same time as her oldest daughter, Amber, then 13, had hers done.
- In 2015, for the first time ever, the Wimbledon final landed on Croft's birthday.