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2012 Open GDF Suez
The 2012 Open GDF Suez was a women's professional tennis tournament played on indoor hard courts. It was the 20th edition of the Open GDF Suez (formerly known as the ''Open Gaz de France'') and was a Premier tournament on the 2012 WTA Tour. It took place at Stade Pierre de Coubertin in Paris, France from 4 February through 12 February 2012. Singles main-draw entrants Seeds *1 Rankings as of January 30, 2012 Other entrants The following players received wildcards into the main draw: * Alizé Cornet * Pauline Parmentier The following players received entry from the qualifying draw: * Gréta Arn * Kristina Barrois * Mona Barthel * Bethanie Mattek-Sands The following players received entry as lucky losers into the singles main draw: * Alberta Brianti * Jill Craybas * Varvara Lepchenko Withdrawals * Jelena Janković (left thigh injury) * Kaia Kanepi (right shoulder injury) * Sabine Lisicki (viral illness) Retirements * Jill Craybas (right leg injury) * Li Na (lower b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
WTA Premier Tournaments
WTA Premier Tournaments was a category of tennis tournaments in the Women's Tennis Association tour, implemented from the reorganization of the schedule in 2009 until 2020. In 2020, Premier events included: * Four "Premier Mandatory" events in Indian Wells, Miami, Madrid, and Beijing with prize money of $4.5 million. * Five "Premier 5" events in Doha, Rome, Cincinnati, Toronto/Montreal, and Wuhan with prize money of $2 million. * Twelve "Premier" events with prize money of $600,000 to $1,000,000. The ranking points awarded to the winners of these tournaments are: * "Premier Mandatory" 1000 * "Premier 5" 900 and * "Premier" 470. This compares to 2,000 points for winning a Grand Slam Tournament ("major"), up to 1,500 points for winning the WTA Finals, and 280 for winning an International tournament. This system differs from that used for the men's ATP rankings, but only slightly. The men have nine Masters events with 1,000 points for the winner (akin to WTA Premier Mandatory and Pr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wild Card (sports)
A wild card (also wildcard or wild-card and also known as an at-large berth or at-large bid) is a tournament or playoff berth awarded to an individual or team that fails to qualify in the normal way; for example, by having a high ranking or winning a qualifying stage. In some events, wildcards are chosen freely by the organizers. Other events have fixed rules. Some North American professional sports leagues compare the records of teams which did not qualify directly by winning a division or conference. International sports In international sports, the term is perhaps best known in reference to two sporting traditions: team wildcards distributed among countries at the Olympic Games and individual wildcards given to some tennis players at every professional tournament (both smaller events and the major ones such as Wimbledon). Tennis players may even ask for a wildcard and get one if they want to enter a tournament on short notice. In Olympics, countries that fail to produce athlet ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vladimíra Uhlířová
Vladimíra Uhlířová (born 4 May 1978) is a retired Czech tennis player. In her career, she won five doubles titles on the WTA Tour, as well as 17 doubles titles on the ITF Women's Circuit. In October 2003, she reached her best singles ranking of world No. 400. In October 2007, she peaked at No. 18 in the doubles rankings. Uhlířová reached the semifinals of the 2007 US Open, partnering Ágnes Szávay. She announced her retirement from professional tennis in January 2016.http://www.itftennis.com/antidoping/news/retired-players.aspx Uhlířová now provides television commentary on the WTA Tour The WTA Tour is a worldwide top-tier tennis tour for women organized by the Women's Tennis Association. The second-tier tour is the WTA 125K series, and third-tier is the ITF Women's Circuit. The men's equivalent is the ATP Tour. WTA Tour tourna .... She speaks several languages, and is therefore able to translate many of the non-English exchanges when on-court coaching takes ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Natalie Grandin
Natalie Grandin (born 27 February 1981) is a retired tennis player from South Africa. She achieved a career-high singles ranking of 144 as of 12 September 2005. On 14 May 2012, she peaked at No. 22 in the doubles rankings. In her career, she won one WTA doubles title as well as three singles and 25 ITF doubles titles. Grandin has yet to compete outside the qualifying rounds of a Grand Slam singles event. She is known for her variety of play, and volleying ability. Grandin retired from professional tennis in January 2015. Biography She was coached by Petra de Jong. Her father, Roy, is a project manager in IT while her mother, Rosamund, is a freight forwarder. Natalie has two sisters. She is a baseliner whose favorite shot is the forehand and her favorite surface is hard court. Grandin started playing tennis at age four. She speaks English and Afrikaans Afrikaans (, ) is a West Germanic language that evolved in the Dutch Cape Colony from the Dutch vernacular of Holla ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kaia Kanepi
Kaia Kanepi (; born 10 June 1985) is an Estonian professional tennis player. She achieved her career-high ranking of world No. 15 on 20 August 2012 and has won four singles titles on the WTA Tour. Described as a 'resident Grand Slam upset specialist' by ''The Guardian'' - with 19 wins over seeded players in the first week of Grand Slams; only three active players (Victoria Azarenka, Venus Williams and Serena Williams) have more. She has also reached seven Grand Slam quarterfinals in all four championships (French Open in 2008 and 2012, Wimbledon in 2010 and 2013, the US Open in 2010 and 2017, and Australian Open 2022), becoming the first Estonian to achieve this and was the first Estonian to be ranked inside the world's top 15. Kanepi's numerous achievements have made her one of Estonia's most famous and successful professional tennis players in history. Kanepi reached her first final in 2006, becoming the first Estonian female player to do so, at the Gaz de France Stars where ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Varvara Lepchenko
Varvara (Cyrillic: Варвара; el, Βαρβάρα, ''Varvára''), a variant of " Barbara", may refer to: Places * Varvara, Azerbaijan * Varvara, Prozor, on the Rama river, Bosnia and Herzegovina * Varvara, Burgas Province, Bulgaria * Varvara, Pazardzhik Province, Septemvri Municipality, Bulgaria * Varvara, Chalkidiki, Greece * Varvara, Tearce, Tearce Municipality, Republic of North Macedonia Books *''Varvara'', US title of 1956 novel ''Sea of Glass'' by Dennis Parry People * Varvara (singer) *Varvara Annenkova (1795–1866), Russian poet * Varvara Bakhmeteva, Mikhail Lermontov's muse * Varvara Baruzdina (1862–1941), Russian painter * Varvara Barysheva (born 1977), Russian speed skater *Varvara Bubnova (1886–1983), Russian painter and pedagogue *Varvara Flink, Russian tennis player *Varvara Golitsyna ( Engelhardt (1752–1815), Russian lady in waiting and noble *Varvara Ivanova (born 1987), Russian virtuoso harpist *Varvara Lepchenko (born 1986), former Uzbekistan an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jill Craybas
Jill N. Craybas (born July 4, 1974) is an American former professional tennis player. From the 2000 US Open to the 2011 US Open, Craybas competed in 45 consecutive Grand Slam main draws; her best result coming in the 2005 Wimbledon Championships where she reached the fourth round, which included wins over Marion Bartoli and Serena Williams. By the time she retired in 2013, she was one of the oldest players on the WTA Tour at 39 years of age, as well as the longest serving, having turned pro in 1996. Early years Craybas was born in Providence, Rhode Island. She received an athletic scholarship to attend the University of Florida in Gainesville, Florida, where she played for coach Andy Brandi's Florida Gators women's tennis team in National Collegiate Athletics Association (NCAA) and Southeastern Conference (SEC) competition from 1993 to 1996. As a senior, she won the 1996 NCAA women's singles tennis championship. She was the 1995–96 recipient of the Honda Sports Award for Ten ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alberta Brianti
Alberta Brianti (born 5 April 1980) is a former professional tennis player from Italy. On 13 June 2011, Brianti achieved her career-high singles ranking of 55. On 13 February 2012, she peaked at No. 68 in the doubles rankings. She won one singles title on the WTA Tour in her career, at Fes Fez or Fes (; ar, فاس, fās; zgh, ⴼⵉⵣⴰⵣ, fizaz; french: Fès) is a city in northern inland Morocco and the capital of the Fès-Meknès administrative region. It is the second largest city in Morocco, with a population of 1.11 mi ..., Morocco in 2011. Biography She is coached by Laura Golarsa and Niccola Vercellino. Her parents are Attilio and Rita, and her brothers are Andrea (engineer) and Alessandro (student). Her favourite surface is hard and she began playing tennis at age 6 when her family introduced her to the sport at a local club. She speaks Italian, English and French. Her favourite tournaments are Wimbledon and Stuttgart. WTA career finals Singles: 2 (1–1) ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lucky Loser
A lucky loser is a sports competitor (player or team) who loses a match in a knockout tournament or loses in qualifying, but who then enters the main draw, usually when another competitor withdraws during the tournament because of illness, injury, or other reasons. The lucky loser then re-enters the competition, normally in place of the withdrawn competitor. In the event of a lucky loser's re-entry to a competition, it usually occurs before all competitors in the main draw have started their first match in the tournament. Lucky losers as tennis tournament winners and finalists It is rare for a lucky loser to win an ATP or WTA tournament; Heinz Gunthardt did it in 1978 (at Springfield), Bill Scanlon in 1978 (at Maui), Francisco Clavet in 1990 in Hilversum, Christian Miniussi in 1991 in São Paulo, Sergiy Stakhovsky in 2008 in Zagreb, Rajeev Ram in 2009 in Newport, Andrey Rublev in 2017 in Umag, Leonardo Mayer in the following week in 2017 in Hamburg and Marco Cecchinato at t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bethanie Mattek-Sands
Bethanie Mattek-Sands ( Bethanie Lynn Mattek; born March 23, 1985) is an American professional tennis player. She has won nine Grand Slam titles (five in women's doubles and four in mixed doubles), and an Olympic gold medal, and is a former world No. 1 in doubles. In women's doubles, Mattek-Sands has won 27 career titles, including five Grand Slam titles at the 2015 Australian Open, 2015 French Open, 2016 US Open, 2017 Australian Open and 2017 French Open, all partnering Lucie Šafářová. The pair also were the runners-up of the 2016 WTA Finals. Mattek-Sands became the world No. 1 in doubles on January 9, 2017, and held the top ranking for 32 consecutive weeks. Mattek-Sands has also found great success in mixed doubles; she won the 2012 Australian Open with and the 2015 French Open and a gold medal at the 2016 Rio Olympics. Mattek-Sands then suffered a major knee injury in 2017 that required surgery and a year away from competition to heal, but eventually came back t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mona Barthel
Mona Barthel (born 11 July 1990) is a German tennis player. Barthel has won four singles and three doubles titles on the WTA Tour, one doubles title on the WTA Challenger Tour as well as five singles titles and one doubles title on the ITF Circuit in her career. On 18 March 2013, she reached her best singles ranking of world No. 23. On 14 September 2015, she peaked at No. 63 in the doubles rankings. Early life Mona Barthel was born in Bad Segeberg to Wolfgang Barthel, who won the shot put event at the 1970 European Junior Athletics Championships in Paris, and Dr. Hannelore. She was raised in a tennis-playing family, and took an interest in the game at age 3. She has cited Steffi Graf as an inspiration. Barthel moved to Neumünster, where she completed her Abitur in 2009, having attended the Klaus Groth Schule. Early career 2007–2010: Early career Barthel played her first ITF tournament in July 2007 in Frinton where she qualified for the main tournament and reached the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kristina Barrois
Kristina Barrois (born 30 September 1981) is a retired German tennis player. Barrois won 15 singles and 16 doubles titles on the ITF Circuit in her career. On 9 May 2011, she reached her best singles ranking of world No. 57. On 20 February 2012, she peaked at No. 55 in the WTA doubles rankings. Early life Barrois began playing tennis at the age of nine in 1991 when she took the sport up herself and began to play at a tennis club. She completed her training as a government inspector at the Saarland Ministry of Justice before turning professional in 2005. Career Barrois was trained by Patrick Schmidt, and later by Andreas Spaniol, and her stamina-trainer was the footballer Bernd Franke. She played in the German Fed Cup team in 2006, losing her singles match to Li Na, and also losing her doubles match. In the same year, she won the German Tennis Championship. She also qualified for the main draws of the Wimbledon Championships and the US Open. At Wimbledon, she lost to Shenay ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
