La Grande Sfida
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La Grande Sfida
La Grande Sfida is a women's exhibition tennis tournament held at the Mediolanum Forum and hosted by the Boscolo Hotel in Milan (for the first two editions). The first edition was held on 3 December, 2011. The second edition was held on 1 December, 2012. The third edition was held on 17 in Genoa and 18 October in Milan, 2014. The fourth edition will be held on 20 in Verona and 22 November in Modena, 2015. 2011 La Grande Sfida The inaugural event this year featured the Williams sisters as well as 2010 French Open champion Francesca Schiavone and 2011 US Open quarter-finalist Flavia Pennetta. Players Matches 2012 La Grande Sfida The 2012 edition was held on December 1, 2012, in Milan, Italy. This year's players featured French Open finalists Sara Errani and Maria Sharapova as well as US Open quarter-finalists Roberta Vinci and Ana Ivanovic. The first match, between Ana Ivanovic and Roberta Vinci, was a repeat of their second round match from the Rogers Cup earlier ...
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Tennis
Tennis is a racket sport that is played either individually against a single opponent ( singles) or between two teams of two players each ( doubles). Each player uses a tennis racket that is strung with cord to strike a hollow rubber ball covered with felt over or around a net and into the opponent's court. The object of the game is to manoeuvre the ball in such a way that the opponent is not able to play a valid return. The player who is unable to return the ball validly will not gain a point, while the opposite player will. Tennis is an Olympic sport and is played at all levels of society and at all ages. The sport can be played by anyone who can hold a racket, including wheelchair users. The modern game of tennis originated in Birmingham, England, in the late 19th century as lawn tennis. It had close connections both to various field (lawn) games such as croquet and bowls as well as to the older racket sport today called real tennis. The rules of modern tennis have ...
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Maria Sharapova
Maria Yuryevna Sharapova ( , ; rus, Мари́я Ю́рьевна Шара́пова, p=mɐˈrʲijə ʂɐˈrapəvə, a=Maria_sharapova.ogg; born 19 April 1987) is a Russian former List of WTA number 1 ranked singles tennis players, world No. 1 tennis player. She competed on the WTA Tour from 2001 to 2020 and was ranked world No. 1 in singles by the Women's Tennis Association (WTA) for 21 weeks. She is one of ten women, and the only Russian, to achieve the Grand Slam (tennis)#Career Grand Slam, career Grand Slam. She is also an Olympic medalist, having won silver in Tennis at the 2012 Summer Olympics – Women's singles, women's singles at the 2012 Summer Olympics, 2012 London Olympics. Sharapova became the world No. 1 for the first time on 22 August 2005 at the age of 18, becoming the first Russian woman to top the singles rankings, and last held the position for a fifth time for four weeks from 11 June 2012, to 8 July 2012. She won five Grand Slam (tennis)#Tournaments, major t ...
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Bari
Bari ( , ; nap, label= Barese, Bare ; lat, Barium) is the capital city of the Metropolitan City of Bari and of the Apulia region, on the Adriatic Sea, southern Italy. It is the second most important economic centre of mainland Southern Italy after Naples. It is a port and university city, as well as the city of Saint Nicholas. The city itself has a population of 315,284 inhabitants, over , while the urban area has 750,000 inhabitants. The metropolitan area has 1.3 million inhabitants. Bari is made up of four different urban sections. To the north is the closely built old town on the peninsula between two modern harbours, with the Basilica of Saint Nicholas, the Cathedral of San Sabino (1035–1171) and the Hohenstaufen Castle built for Frederick II, which is now also a major nightlife district. To the south is the Murat quarter (erected by Joachim Murat), the modern heart of the city, which is laid out on a rectangular grid-plan with a promenade on the sea and the majo ...
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Henri Leconte
Henri Leconte (born 4 July 1963) is a French former professional tennis player. He reached the men's singles final at the French Open in 1988, won the French Open men's doubles title in 1984, and helped France win the Davis Cup in 1991. Leconte's career-high singles ranking was world No. 5. Biography and career Leconte first came to the tennis world's attention as an outstanding junior player who won the French Open junior title in 1981. He turned professional that year and won his first career doubles title at Bologna, and his first top-level singles title the following year, 1982, in Stockholm. Leconte played in the Davis Cup final for the first time in 1982, when France was defeated 4–1 by the United States. Leconte teamed up with Yannick Noah to win the men's doubles title at the French Open in 1984. In 1985, Leconte and Noah reached a second Grand Slam doubles final at the US Open, where they finished runners-up. Leconte reached his career-high doubles ranking of world N ...
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Sergi Bruguera
Sergi Bruguera i Torner (; born 16 January 1971) is a former professional tennis player from Spain. He won consecutive men's singles titles at the French Open in 1993 and 1994, a silver medal at the 1996 Olympic Games in men's singles and reached a career-high ranking of No. 3 in August 1994. Bruguera is the only player to have a winning record against both Roger Federer and Pete Sampras. He won three of his five matches against Sampras: Bruguera leads 1–0 on hard court, 2–1 on clay, and Sampras leads 1–0 on carpet. In their only match, at the 2000 Barcelona Open, Bruguera defeated Federer 6–1, 6–1. By number of games won, the match remains Federer's worst loss in his entire career. Bruguera was selected to captain the Spain Davis Cup team in 2018. He became coach of Alexander Zverev in May 2022. Career Bruguera won a total of 14 top-level singles titles and 3 doubles titles. His career-high singles ranking was World No. 3. He is currently the director of the Brug ...
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Mats Wilander
Mats Arne Olof Wilander (; born 22 August 1964) is a Swedish former world No. 1 tennis player. From 1982 to 1988, he won seven major singles titles (three at the French Open, three at the Australian Open, and one at the US Open), and one major men's doubles title (at Wimbledon). His breakthrough came suddenly and unexpectedly when he won the 1982 French Open at the age of 17. In 1988, Wilander won three of the four singles majors and finished the year ranked as the world No. 1. Although he never won the singles title at Wimbledon, Wilander twice won the Australian Open when it was played on grass courts. This makes Wilander one of only six men (along with Jimmy Connors, Andre Agassi, Rafael Nadal, Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic) to have won major singles titles on grass courts, hard courts, and clay courts since it was first achievable in 1978 (when US Open was first played on hard courts). Wilander, Nadal, and Djokovic are the only men to have won at least two major singles ...
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John McEnroe
John Patrick McEnroe Jr. (born February 16, 1959) is an American former professional tennis player. He was known for his shot-making and volleying skills, his rivalries with Björn Borg and Jimmy Connors, and his confrontational on-court behavior, which frequently landed him in trouble with umpires and tennis authorities. McEnroe is the only male player in tennis history to hold the world No. 1 ranking in both singles and doubles simultaneously. Only one other male player, Stefan Edberg, ever attained No. 1 in both, although at different times. McEnroe finished his career with 77 singles titles on the ATP Tour and 78 doubles titles; this remains the highest men's combined total of the Open Era. He is the only male player to win more than 70 titles in both the men's singles and the men's doubles categories. He also won 25 singles titles on the ATP Champions tour. He won seven Grand Slam singles titles (four at the US Open and three at Wimbledon), nine Grand Slam men's doubl ...
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Michael Chang
Michael Te-pei Chang (born February 22, 1972) is an American former professional tennis player and coach. He is the youngest man in history to win a singles major, winning the 1989 French Open at 17 years and 109 days old. Chang won a total of 34 top-level professional singles titles, (including seven Masters titles) was a three-time major runner-up, and reached a career-best ranking of world No. 2 in 1996. Since he was shorter than virtually all of his opponents, he played a dogged defensive style utilizing his quickness and speed. In 2008, Chang was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame. He has coached Kei Nishikori since 2014. Early life After moving from Hoboken, New Jersey, to St. Paul, Minnesota, where Michael learned tennis, the Changs moved first to Placentia, California, and then Encinitas, California, to increase the tennis opportunities for Michael and his older brother, Carl. Growing up Chang learned some Chinese from his Taiwanese parents and can ...
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Goran Ivanišević
Goran Ivanišević (; born 13 September 1971) is a Croatian former professional tennis player and current coach. He is the only player to win a The Championships, Wimbledon, Wimbledon singles title as a Wild card (sports)#Professional tennis, wildcard. He achieved this in 2001 Wimbledon Championships – Men's singles, 2001 while ranked world No. 125, after being runner-up at Wimbledon in 1992 Wimbledon Championships – Men's singles, 1992, 1994 Wimbledon Championships – Men's singles, 1994 and 1998 Wimbledon Championships – Men's singles, 1998. Ivanišević's career-high singles ranking was world No. 2, achieved in July 1994. He coached Marin Čilić from September 2013 to July 2016, leading Čilić to his only Grand Slam (tennis)#Tournaments, major title to date at the 2014 US Open – Men's singles, 2014 US Open. He has been coaching Novak Djokovic since 2019. Ivanišević was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 2020. Career Goran is the son of Srđa ...
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Ivan Lendl
Ivan Lendl (; born March 7, 1960) is a Czech–American former professional tennis player. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest tennis players of all time. Lendl was ranked world No. 1 in singles for 270 weeks and won 94 singles titles. He won eight major singles titles and was runner-up a joint record 11 times (tied with Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic), making him the first man to contest 19 major finals. Lendl also contested a record eight consecutive US Open finals, and won seven year-end championships. Lendl is the only man in professional tennis history to have a match winning percentage of over 90% in five different years (1982, 1985, 1986, 1987, and 1989). He also had a comfortable head-to-head winning record against his biggest rivals, which translates to a 22-13 record (4-3 in major matches) against Jimmy Connors and a 21-15 record (7-3 in major matches) against John McEnroe. Lendl's dominance of his era was the most evident at the year-end championship ...
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ATP Champions Tour
The ATP Champions Tour is a men's tennis tour intended for former tennis professionals, who have since retired from mainstream professional tennis touring (The ATP). The Tour brings together many of the greatest tennis players in history for nostalgic, competitive and entertaining tournaments in cities around the world. For a player to be eligible for play on this tour, he must be in the year of his 35th birthday or have been retired from the ATP World Tour for two years or more. Each player must have been either a world No. 1, a Grand Slam finalist, or a singles player in a winning Davis Cup team. Each event can also invite two players of its choice to take wild cards. The Tour usually consists of around 10 events around the world, with a year-ending "My World Champions Tennis" event held at the Royal Albert Hall in London. Events are typically played over four days with eight-man fields competing against each other in a round-robin format, ensuring that all players feature i ...
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2012 Rogers Cup – Women's Singles
1 (one, unit, unity) is a number representing a single or the only entity. 1 is also a numerical digit and represents a single unit of counting or measurement. For example, a line segment of ''unit length'' is a line segment of length 1. In conventions of sign where zero is considered neither positive nor negative, 1 is the first and smallest positive integer. It is also sometimes considered the first of the infinite sequence of natural numbers, followed by  2, although by other definitions 1 is the second natural number, following  0. The fundamental mathematical property of 1 is to be a multiplicative identity, meaning that any number multiplied by 1 equals the same number. Most if not all properties of 1 can be deduced from this. In advanced mathematics, a multiplicative identity is often denoted 1, even if it is not a number. 1 is by convention not considered a prime number; this was not universally accepted until the mid-20th century. Additionally, 1 is ...
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