Johanna Konta has been backed to stay at the top end of women's tennis by former British men's ace Tim Henman.

Eastbourne-based Konta's bid for Wimbledon glory ended when she was beaten in three sets in the second round by 2014 runner-up Eugenie Bouchard.

She knocked out Monica Puig in the first round for her first ever win at the All England Club and Henman believes 16th seed Konta's subsequent exit is no more than a blip.

"I think her getting a win at Wimbledon was inevitable – she's a world-class player,” said Henman, who was speaking on behalf of HSBC, the Official Banking Partner of The Championships.

"What she has done in the last 12 months is fantastic. From 146 in the world to now being a top 20 player is great. I've enjoyed seeing that.

"She is going to be around for a long time because she has got a great game and a great attitude. She's a great story for British tennis."

British No.1 Konta began the year by reaching the last four of the Australian Open. She still has the US Open to look forward to, where she reached the last 16 last year.

Henman said: "You've got to take it one match at a time but she's in the top 20 for a reason and obviously she reached the semi-finals in Australia.

"I think she should be looking to get into the second week of Slams because she's that good."

Bouchard, who showed the sort of form which carried her through to the final against Petra Kvitova two years ago after a troublesome 2015, was impressed by Konta during her 6-3, 1-6, 6-1 victory in just under two hours on centre court.

The Canadian, labelling her own display her best of 2016, said: "I think it was a good match. I think we played high quality tennis.

"Johanna has a great game and I think she can become a really good player. I feel like in a way she forced me to raise my level. So it was very high quality."

Bouchard added: "She reminds me of myself a little bit, trying to control the point. She has a really good serve and really good second serve as well.

"As soon as you back off a little bit, she's all over you.

"She put a lot of pressure on me and I feel like she can go very far with a game like that."

Konta could have gone further at Wimbledon with a kinder draw. Her reward for being the first British woman to be seeded for 32 years was a tricky first round against in-form Puerto Rican Puig, ranked 36.

She came through that rain-affected test spread over two days on court one with flying colours and was unfortunate then to be facing Bouchard, who despite slipping to No. 48 in the world was an obvious threat among the non-seeds.

Dominika Cibulkova, Bouchard's third round opponent today, was far luckier. The Slovakian, winner of the Aegon International at Eastbourne in the build-up to Wimbledon but seeded lower than Konta, defeated world No.53 Mirjana Lucic-Baroni in round one and Daria Gavrilova (56) in round two.

Konta was philsophical about running into Bouchard. "I'm very happy with the way I'm developing as a player," she said. "I'm hungry to keep doing so.

"To have matches like these only add to the desire to keep getting better. I don't think I can quite describe how valuable these sorts of experiences are.

"I'm very grateful for them. I'm already just looking forward to being able to get out onto the match court again."

Her next event could be in Stanford in the US and she is "definitely playing Montreal" at the end of the month in the build-up to the Olympics and US Open in August. The Konta success story looks set to roll on.

* Tim Henman is an HSBC ambassador. HSBC is the Official Banking Partner of The Championships and is committed to supporting tennis from the back garden to Centre Court. Follow @HSBC_Sport