Kelly Sotherton, the World Championship bronze medallist, has tipped her Great Britain team-mate Jessica Ennis to bounce back from last weekend’s disappointment in Osaka and land heptathlon gold in Berlin in two years’ time.

On Sunday, defending champion Carolina Kluft landed a third straight world crown with an overall European record ahead of Ukraine’s Lyudmila Blonska and Birchfield Harrier Sotherton, with Ennis finishing fourth with a lifetime best 6469 points.

While next year’s Beijing Olympic Games will probably come too soon for the 21-year-old Sheffield native, Sotherton believes Ennis will have made the necessary improvements over the next 24 months to become Briton’s first world heptathlon champion.

“This weekend showed that experience won over, I have been in that playground before she hadn’t,” Sotherton said. “If she had held her nerve in the shot and long jump, she may have beaten me but experience paid off in the end. She will learn now for next year and when she goes into Berlin in two years’ time she will be challenging for a gold medal.”

Ennis led after the first event on Saturday with a lifetime best in the 100 metre hurdles, but after a typically strong showing in the high jump, she slipped to sixth after a disastrous shot putt which was the fourth lowest in the competition.

The Commonwealth Games bronze-medallist recovered to end the first day in fourth with a storming personal best in the 200m, but after a solid leap in the long jump, virtually ended all hope of a medal in the Far East after slipping to fifth following the javelin.

She managed a personal best 38.07m but, along with the shot putt, her javelin ability will need to improve for her to be consistently challenging for world honours. Ennis’s chances of topping the podium will also be significantly be improved with all-conquering Kluft set to switch to the long jump after next year’s Olympics and Sotherton considering a similar move after Beijing.

“I would not be surprised if Jessica won the gold medal in two years’ time,” added Sotherton, who was beaten by Ennis in five of the seven events at the Nagai Stadium. “She needs to improve her shot, her long jump and her javelin and they are the only thing but they are improving. I am sure she will get better, she is only young.”

Sotherton rubbished suggestions five-foot-four Ennis would struggle to improve her throwing events because of her height and insisted Ennis is “the best of the new crop” of heptathletes.

“You can’t say that she will be to small to progress in those events because Margaret Simpson, who unfortunately had to pull out through injury, threw 56 metres before and she is only five foot,” she added.