|
|
|---|
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
Monica Seles (born December 2, 1973 Novi Sad, Vojvodina, Serbia) is a former World No. 1 professional tennis player and a member of the International Tennis Hall of Fame. She was born in Novi Sad, Serbia, former Yugoslavia to Hungarian parents. She became a naturalized United States citizen in 1994 and also received Hungarian citizenship in June 2007. She won nine Grand Slam singles titles, winning eight of them while a citizen of Yugoslavia and one while a citizen of the United States.She became the youngest-ever champion at the 1990 French Open at the age of 16. She was the World No. 1 player in the women's game during 1991 and 1992, but in 1993 she was forced out of the sport for more than two years following an on-court attack in which a man stabbed her in the back with a 9-inch-long knife. She enjoyed some success after returning to the tour in 1995, including a Grand Slam singles title at the 1996 Australian Open, but was unable consistently to reproduce her best form. Seles played her last professional match at the 2003 French Open, but her official retirement announcement was not issued until February 2008.
Seles's career was affected by the stabbing incident; her trajectory was indicative of continuing future greatness. During the height of her career (1990 French Open through the 1993 Australian Open), she won 8 of the 11 Grand Slam singles tournaments she contested.Until her loss to Martina Hingis at the 1999 Australian Open, Seles had a perfect record at the event (33–0), which is the longest undefeated streak for this tournament (although Margaret Court won 38 consecutive matches there from 1960 to 1968 after losing a match in 1959). It also marked her first defeat in Australia, having won the Sydney tournament in 1996. Seles was the first female tennis player to win her first six Grand Slam singles finals: 1990 French Open, 1991 Australian Open, 1991 French Open, 1991 US Open, 1992 Australian Open, and 1992 French Open. Seles was also the first female player since Hilde Krahwinkel Sperling in 1937 to win the women's singles title three consecutive years at the French Open. (Chris Evert, however, won the title the four consecutive times she played the tournament: 1974, 1975, 1979, and 1980; in 2007, Justine Henin won her third consecutive French Open singles title.) With eight Grand Slam singles titles before her 20th birthday, Seles holds the record for most Grand Slam singles titles won as a teenager.
Seles was born in Novi Sad, Vojvodina, Serbia in an ethnic Hungarian family. Her parents names are Eszter and Karoly and she has an older brother, Zoltán. When she entered the sport she began playing tennis at the age of five, coached by her father. Karoly Szeles, who was a professional cartoonist, drew pictures for her to make her tennis more fun. He is also responsible for developing her two-handed style for both the forehand and backhand. In 1985 at the age of 11, she won the Orange Bowl tournament in Miami, Florida, and caught the attention of tennis coach Nick Bollettieri. In 1986, the Seles family moved from SFR Yugoslavia to the United States, and Seles enrolled at the Nick Bollettieri Tennis Academy, where she trained for two years.Seles was listed as the 13th greatest player of all time (men and women) by (U.S.) Tennis magazine and was also one of 15 women named by Australian Tennis magazine as the greatest champions of the last 30 years.
Seles won her first Grand Slam singles title at the 1990 French Open. Facing World No. 1 Steffi Graf in the final. 1991 was the first of two years in which Seles dominated the women's tour. She started out by winning the Australian Open in January, beating Jana Novotná in the final. In March, she replaced Graf as the World No. 1. She then successfully defended her French Open title, beating the former youngest-ever winner, Arantxa Sanchez Vicario, in the final.
1992 was an equally dominant year. Seles successfully defended her titles at the Australian Open, the French Open, and the US Open. She also reached the final at Wimbledon but lost to Graf 6–2, 6–1. From January 1991 through February 1993, Seles won 22 titles and reached 33 finals out of the 34 tournaments she played. She compiled a 159–12 win-loss record (92.9% winning percentage), including a 55–1 win-loss record in Grand Slam tournaments. In the broader context of her first four years on the circuit (1989–1992), Seles had a win-loss record of 231–25 (90.2% winning percentage) and collected 30 titles.Seles was the top women's player heading into 1993, having won the French Open three consecutive years and both the US Open and Australian Open in consecutive years. In January 1993, Seles defeated Graf in the final of the Australian Open, which to date was her third win in four Grand Slam finals with Graf.
Seles returned to the tour in August 1995 and won her first comeback tournament, the Canadian Open, beating Amanda Coetzer in the final 6–0, 6–1. The following month at the US Open, Seles lost the final to Graf 6-7, 6-0, 3-6 after failing to capitalize on a set point in the first set. In January 1996, Seles won her fourth Australian Open, beating Anke Huber in the final. But this was her last Grand Slam title.Seles struggled to recapture her best form on a consistent basis. Her difficulties were compounded by having to cope with her father and long-term coach Károly being stricken by cancer and eventually dying in 1998. Seles was the runner-up at the US Open to Graf again in 1996. Her last Grand Slam final came at the French Open in 1998 (a few weeks after her father's death). She defeated World No. 3 Jana Novotna in three sets and World No. 1 Martina Hingis in straight sets before losing to Arantxa Sanchez Vicario in the three-set final.
While she did not reach another Grand Slam singles final, she did consistently reach the quarterfinal and semifinal stages in those tournaments and was a fixture in the WTA Tour's top 10. In 2002, her last full year on the tour, she finished the year ranked World No. 7 and defeated Venus Williams, Martina Hingis, Jennifer Capriati, Justine Henin, Maria Sharapova, Kim Clijsters, and Lindsay Davenport and reached at least the quarterfinals at each Grand Slam tournament.After becoming a U.S. citizen in 1994, Seles helped the U.S. team win the Fed Cup in 1996, 1999, and 2000. She also won a bronze medal at the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney.
On April 21, 2009, Seles released her memoir Getting A Grip: On My Body, My Mind, My Self which chronicles her bout with depression and food addiction after her stabbing, her father's cancer diagnosis and eventual death, her journey back to the game and a life beyond tennis.
For more about Monica Seles visit Wikipedia
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
For More Information & Records Visit Wikipedia
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
Jennifer Marie Capriati, Born March 29, 1976 in New York City, is a former professional tennis player, ranked number one in the world for a short time, and the winner of three women's singles championships in Grand Slam torunaments. Capriati won 14 professional singles tournaments during her career, along with one doubles championship.
Capriati made her professional debut in 1990 at the age of 14 when she reached the finals of the hard court tournament in Boca Raton, Florida, losing there to Gabriela Sabatini. Capriati reached the semifinals of the French Open in her debut and later became the youngest ever player to crack the top 10 at age 14 years, 235 days in October of that year. Between 1990 and 1993, Capriati won six singles titles, including a Gold Medal at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, defeating Steffi Graf in the final.
In 1998, Capriati won her first Grand Slam singles match in five years at Wimbledon. During the next two years, Capriati slowly returned to cmpionship form, winning her first title in six years in Strasbourg, France, in 1999 and regaining a top 20 ranking. At the 2001 Australian Open, the reinvigorated Capriati became the lowest seed to ever win the championship when she defeated Martina Hingis (ranked number one in the workd) in straight sets for her first Grand Slam championship. She also won the French Open that year, claiming the number one ranking in October. After successfully defending her Australian Open crown in 2002, Capriati became a top ten mainstay until injuries derailed her career in 2004.
In 2005, Tennis magazine ranked Capriati number 36 in its list of the 40 greatest players in the 40 years of that magazine.
Ongoing problems with her shoulder and wrist have prevented Capriati from competing on the WTA Tour. She has had several surgeries on her wrist and shoulder, most recently in 2007. Capriati has not officially retired, but she is widely regarded as so.
In April 2009, it was announced that Capriati would appear on the ABC television reality series "The Superstars". The show, described as a revival of the 1970s series of the same name, premiered on June 23, 2009, in a co-ed format, with Capriati paired with singer and actor David Charvet, best known for his role as a lifeguard on the television show Baywatch.
In the first episode of the show, they were one of the lower-performing teams and were sent into a run-off in an obstacle course race against basketball player Lisa Leslie and actor Dan Cortese. Capriati/Charvet won their race and avoided elimination. At the start of the next episode, however, which aired on June 30, 2009, it was suddenly announced that Capriati had re-aggravated a previous injury during the first episode's events, and that as a result she and her partner were eliminated from the competition.
Source : Wikipedia
Saturday, September 11, 2010
Gabriela Beatriz Sabatini (born 16 May 1970 in Buenos Aires, Argentina) is a former professional Argentine tennis player. She was one of the leading players on the women's circuit in the late-1980s and early-1990s. She won the women's singles title at the US Open in 1990, the women's doubles title at Wimbledon in 1988, two WTA Tour Championships in 1988 and 1994, and a silver medal at the 1988 Olympic Games. Known affectionately as the Princess of the Pampas, her versatile stylish game and perceived attractiveness brought her a wide following.
After winning five tournaments in 1992, Sabatini had a 29-month drought in which she failed to win a title. She brought this run to an end at the WTA Tour Championships in 1994 and then won her first tournament of 1995 at Sydney (defeating Lindsay Davenport in the final of both events). But that proved to be the last singles title of Sabatini's career.
In 1988 she was voted the hottest tennis player alive by Tennis Watchers of North Carolina. In 1989, she launched her own perfume, simply named "Gabriela Sabatini". Since retiring from competitive tennis, she has launched several other perfume lines. In 1992, a red-orange fiery rose was named the "Gabriela Sabatini Rose" in her honor.
In 1994, the Great American Doll Company created a doll in Sabatini's likeness, dressed in tennis clothes. That same year, Sabatini published a motivational book entitled My Story (ISBN 1-886612-00-5), providing a look at her background and the inspirations that led her to become a tennis player.
Sabatini retired from the professional tour in 1996, having won 27 singles titles and 14 doubles titles. She reached her highest ranking of World No. 3 in 1989. Her last professional singles match was on October 14, 1996, when she lost to Jennifer Capriati 6-3, 6-4. (Capriati's first loss on the WTA tour was to Sabatini in 1990.) Sabatini played her last professional match on October 19, 1996, in the doubles semifinals in Zürich with Lori McNeil. Sabatini was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame on July 15, 2006.
Data Source : Wikipedia.org
Wednesday, August 4, 2010
Stefanie Maria Graf (born June 14, 1969, in Mannheim, Baden-Württemberg, West Germany) known as Steffi Graf is a former World No. 1 female tennis player.Graf is the only player to have won all four Grand Slam singles tournaments (Wimbledon, the US Open, the French Open and the Australian Open) at least four times each. In total, she won 22 Grand Slam singles titles, second among male and female players only to Margaret Court's 24. In 1988, Graf became the first and only tennis player (male or female) to achieve the Calendar Year Golden Slam by winning all four Grand Slam singles titles and the Olympic gold medal in the same calendar year.
Graf was ranked World No. 1 by the Women's Tennis Association (WTA) for a record 377 total weeks—the longest period for which any player, male or female, has held the number one ranking since the WTA and the Association of Tennis Professionals began issuing rankings. She also holds the open era record for finishing as the year-end World No. 1 the most times, having done so on eight occasions. She won 107 singles titles, which ranks her third on the WTA's all-time list after Martina Navratilova (167 titles) and Chris Evert (154 titles).
A notable feature of Graf's game was her versatility across all playing surfaces. She won six French Open singles titles (second to Evert) and seven Wimbledon singles titles (third behind Navratilova and Helen Wills Moody). She is the only singles player to have achieved a Calendar Year Grand Slam while playing on all three major types of tennis courts (grass courts, clay courts and hard courts), as the Calendar Year Grand Slams won by other players before her occurred when the Australian and US Opens were still played on grass. Graf reached thirteen consecutive Grand Slam singles finals, from the 1987 French Open through to the 1990 French Open, winning nine of them. She played in 36 Grand Slam singles tournaments from the 1987 French Open, her first Grand Slam win, through the 1999 French Open, her last Grand Slam win, reaching the finals 29 times and winning 22 titles. She reached a total of 31 Grand Slam singles finals, third overall behind Evert (34 finals) and Navratilova (32 finals).
Graf retired in 1999 while she was ranked World No. 3. She married former World No. 1 men's tennis player Andre Agassi in October 2001 and they have two children, Jaden Gil and Jaz Elle.
Graf won seven singles titles at Wimbledon, six singles titles at the French Open, five singles titles at the US Open, and four singles titles at the Australian Open. Her overall record in 56 Grand Slam events was 282-34 (89 percent) (87-10 at the French Open, 75-8 at Wimbledon, 73-10 at the US Open, and 47-6 at the Australian Open). Her career prize-money earnings totalled US$21,895,277 (a record until Lindsay Davenport surpassed this amount in January 2008). Her singles win-loss record was 900-115 (88.7 percent). She was ranked World No. 1 for 186 consecutive weeks (from August 1987 to March 1991, still the record in the women's game) and a record total 377 weeks overall. Graf also won 11 doubles titles.Data Source : Wikipedia.org
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
Anna Sergeyevna Kournikova (born 7 June 1981) is a Russian professional tennis player and model. Her celebrity status made her one of the best known tennis players worldwide.
At the peak of her fame, fans looking for images of Kournikova made her name one of the most common search strings on the Internet search engine Google.
Although also successful in singles, reaching No. 8 in the world in 2000, Kournikova's specialty has been doubles, where she has at times been the World No. 1 player.
With Martina Hingis as her partner, she won Grand Slam titles in Australia in 1999 and 2002. Based on their looks, Hingis and Kournikova facetiously referred to themselves as the "Spice Girls of Tennis"
Kournikova's professional tennis career has been curtailed for the past several years, and possibly ended, by serious back and spinal problems. She currently resides in Miami Beach, Florida,[1] and plays in occasional exhibitions and in doubles for the St. Louis Aces of World Team Tennis.
Anna Kournikova and boyfriend Enrique Iglesias betted that they will water-ski naked in Miami if Spain wins FIFA which they did.
For more information visit Wikipedia.org
Thursday, February 18, 2010
Maria Yuryevna Sharapova (born April 19, 1987) is a former World No. 1 Russian professional tennis player. She has won 3 Grand Slam titles (2004 Wimbledon, 2006 US Open, and 2008 Australian Open). She was also runner-up at the 2007 Australian Open.
Sharapova was born in 1987 to Yuri and Yelena, ethnic Belarusians, in the town of Nyagan in Siberia, Russia. Her parents moved from Gomel, Belarus after the Chernobyl nuclear accident in 1986 affected the region.
Sharapova made her professional breakthrough in 2004 when, at age 17, she upset two-time defending champion and top seed Serena Williams in the 2004 Wimbledon final for her first Grand Slam singles title. She entered the top ten of the WTA Rankings with this win.
Sharapova's tennis success and appearance have enabled her to secure commercial endorsements that greatly exceed in value her tournament winnings. In April 2005, People named her one of the 50 most beautiful celebrities in the world.
In 2006, Maxim ranked Sharapova the hottest athlete in the world for the fourth consecutive year. She posed in a six-page bikini photoshoot spread in the 2006 Valentine's Day issue of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue, alongside 25 scantily-clad supermodels.
In a poll run by Britain's FHM magazine, she was voted the seventh most eligible bachelorette, based on both "wealth and looks."
For more information visit Wikipedia.org
