Her greatest success in a Grand Slam tournament came in the first round of the 2006 Wimbledon Championships when she came back from one set down to beat world No.

This was the first time in her career that her ranking was high enough to grant her access to a Grand Slam main draw without a wildcard.

[3] South announced her retirement from professional tennis on 2 December 2013 in order to focus on a coaching career.

[4][5] Melanie's mother is called Sheila and her father, John, used to play professional football for Fulham (1964–66) and Brentford (1966–67).

[8] She is currently furthering her education by taking an Open University course in Understanding Health which she hopes will lead onto another course in psychology.

She also hit 45 winners and 48 unforced errors during this match, a statistic which demonstrates her aggressive, high-risk attitude to tennis.

[10] Renowned tennis coach Nick Bollettieri saw South play during her first round match against his charge, Michelle Larcher de Brito, at the 2008 French Open and commented: "She can serve well and has good ground strokes.

Six months later, she won the 17th Salik Open (her only singles title at junior level), and then reached the semifinals of her next tournament before losing to Anna Chakvetadze.

[13] In 2002, in only her second match at adult level, she received a wildcard into the qualifying draw at Wimbledon and lost to Adriana Barna.

In June she played her first match on the WTA Tour, when she received a wildcard into the Tier III DFS Classic in Birmingham.

She immediately received another wildcard into the qualifying draw of Wimbledon, but lost in straight sets to Bethanie Mattek in the first round.

In April, she won the second ITF title of her career, beating top-seed Anne Keothavong in the final.

Between winning this and losing in the first round of qualifying for Wimbledon for the third year running, she reached the final of one more ITF tournament and the semifinal stage of another.

In June, South played for the first time in the Wimbledon main draw as a wildcard and reached the second round by beating No.

14 Schiavone was a career-first top-20 victory, and the best win in terms of ranking for a British player since Sam Smith beat No.

[13] 2007 started slowly for South, with a loss in the first round of qualifying for the Tier-IV Auckland Open to Sara Errani (a later top-40 player) and a loss in the first round of the qualifying tournament for the Australian Open to Timea Bacsinszky (a future top-50 player).

Immediately after this came another appearance in the main draw of Wimbledon where she played Japanese veteran Ai Sugiyama but lost.

Her grass-court season began with her best result to date in a WTA tournament by reaching the quarterfinals of the Birmingham Classic.

2 seed Serena Williams withdrew from the tournament before her first-round match resulting in South getting into the main draw as a lucky loser.

2 seed, South received her bye into the second round where she capitalised on this good opportunity by beating Petra Kvitová.

In October and November, South reached four consecutive $25k tournaments in Traralgon, Mount Gambier, Port Pirie and Pune.

[13] In early January, South attempted to qualify for the Brisbane International tournament where she lost to Ekaterina Bychkova.

[16] Because Anne Keothavong had already qualified for the main draw, it was the first time since Jo Durie and Clare Wood in the 1993 US Open, that two British women had gained direct entry into a Grand Slam championship.

[17] South made it to the second round at Brisbane after Bartoli retired due to a left calf strain at 1–1 in the first set.

This marked the first time in nearly 16 years that two British women had been inside the top 100, following Durie and Monique Javer in March 1993.

South spent the following week in Estonia playing in the 2009 Fed Cup alongside compatriots Anne Keothavong, Elena Baltacha and doubles specialist Sarah Borwell.

[19] She was not required to participate when Britain defeated the Netherlands, 3–0, but played in both the doubles and singles in the third and final tie against Luxembourg.

She followed this up with a victory on the WTA Tour at the Birmingham Classic over Katie O'Brien before falling to first seed Zheng Jie.

She also achieved a first-round win over Alona and Kateryna Bondarenko at Wimbledon, alongside fellow Brit Jocelyn Rae.