Catalina Castaño Álvarez (; born 7 July 1979) is a retired Colombian professional tennis player. Her highest singles

ranking A ranking is a relationship between a set of items such that, for any two items, the first is either "ranked higher than", "ranked lower than" or "ranked equal to" the second. In mathematics, this is known as a weak order or total preorder of o ...

of 35 she achieved in 2006. In her career, she won ten titles on the ITF Circuit, six in singles, as well as one doubles title on tournaments of 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 ...

and the

WTA 125K series WTA 125 tournaments are an international series of professional women's tennis tournaments organized by the Women's Tennis Association since 2012. In the past (2012–2015) sometimes called the WTA Challenger series Nicole Vaidišová Nicole Vaidišová Štěpánková (; born 23 April 1989) is a Czech former professional tennis player. Vaidišová is an Australian Open and French Open semifinalist as well as a two-time quarterfinalist at Wimbledon. She started playing tenni ...

Anna-Lena Grönefeld Anna-Lena Grönefeld (also spelled Groenefeld; born 4 June 1985) is a German former professional tennis player. Competing as a professional from 2003 until 2019, she won one singles title on the WTA Tour, at the 2006 Mexican Open, and reached t ...

Patty Schnyder Patty Schnyder (born 14 December 1978)
Weltwoche, 14. September 2011 is a Swiss reti ...

Paola Suárez Paola Suárez (; born 23 June 1976) is a retired tennis player from Argentina. She was one of the most prominent women's doubles players throughout the early and mid-2000s, winning eight Grand Slam titles, all of them with Virginia Ruano Pascual ...

Li Na Li Na (born 26 February 1982) is a Chinese former professional tennis player. She achieved a career-high WTA ranking of world No. 2 on 17 February 2014. Over the course of her career, Li won nine WTA Tour singles titles including two Grand Sl ...

and

Lucie Šafářová Lucie Šafářová (; born 4 February 1987) is a Czech former professional tennis player who was ranked world No. 1 in doubles, and No. 5 in singles. She is a five-time Grand Slam champion in doubles, having won the 2015 Australian Open, 2015 ...

. She was coached by Peruvian-born British citizen Pablo Giacopelli since 2004.

Career summary

1999–2004

In 1999 she won her first ITF title in Santiago. The following year she won two ITF titles in

Midlothian Midlothian (; gd, Meadhan Lodainn) is a historic county, registration county, lieutenancy area and one of 32 council areas of Scotland used for local government. Midlothian lies in the east-central Lowlands, bordering the City of Edinburgh, ...

and

Cali Santiago de Cali (), or Cali, is the capital of the Valle del Cauca department, and the most populous city in southwest Colombia, with 2,227,642 residents according to the 2018 census. The city spans with of urban area, making Cali the second ...

. In 2001, she reached the quarterfinals in her home tournament of Bogotá, Colombia (Tier III). In 2002, Castaño advanced the semifinals in Bogotá. She reached four ITF finals, winning two of them - in Gorizia and Campobasso. She won 39 matches in the year and lost 18. In 2004, she reached the quarterfinals in Bogotá for the third time. She also has the distinction of being the last player to be defeated by

Martina Navratilova Martina Navratilova ( cs, Martina Navrátilová ; ; born October 18, 1956) is a Czech–American, former professional tennis player. Widely considered among the greatest tennis players of all time, Navratilova won 18 major singles titles, 31 maj ...

Wimbledon Wimbledon most often refers to: * Wimbledon, London, a district of southwest London * Wimbledon Championships, the oldest tennis tournament in the world and one of the four Grand Slam championships Wimbledon may also refer to: Places London * ...

in the ladies singles, losing the match 0–6, 1–6. She won her sixth ITF title in Orbetello.

2005

In April, she won five matches in Miami (Tier I) including back-to-back wins over world No. 19,

, and world No. 13,

Patty Schnyder Patty Schnyder (born 14 December 1978)
Weltwoche, 14. September 2011 is a Swiss reti ...

, before falling to world No. 9,

Venus Williams Venus Ebony Starr Williams (born June 17, 1980) is an American professional tennis player. A former world No. 1 in both singles and doubles, Williams has won seven Grand Slam singles titles, five at Wimbledon and two at the US Open. She is ...

, in three sets in the round of 16. In May, she won four matches in Rome (Tier I) before losing to world No. 10,

Vera Zvonareva Vera Igorevna Zvonareva ( rus, Вера Игоревна Звонарёва, p=ˈvʲɛrə ˈiɡərʲɪvnə zvənɐˈrʲɵvə, a=Vera zvonareva.ogg; born 7 September 1984) is a Russian professional tennis player. She was introduced to tennis at ...

, in the round of 16. In August, she reached her first ever

final in Budapest. She lost to the top seed

Anna Smashnova Anna Smashnova ( he, אנה סמשנובה, russian: Анна Смашнова; born July 16, 1976) is a Soviet-born Israeli former tennis player. She retired from professional tour after Wimbledon 2007. Smashnova reached her career-high singles ...

in the final, in straight sets. In October, she reached the semifinals in Seoul (Tier IV) but lost to the eventual champion

Nicole Vaidišová Nicole Vaidišová Štěpánková (; born 23 April 1989) is a Czech former professional tennis player. Vaidišová is an Australian Open and French Open semifinalist as well as a two-time quarterfinalist at Wimbledon. She started playing tenni ...

2006

She commenced January with a semifinal showing in Canberra (Tier IV) and passed the first round of the Australian Open for the first time. In Charleston in mid-April, Catalina reached her first Tier I quarterfinal, after defeating

Ashley Harkleroad Ashley Harkleroad Adams (born May 2, 1985) is a former professional American tennis player. She reached a career-high ranking in singles of 39 in June 2003. Career Raised in Chickamauga, Georgia (near Chattanooga, Tennessee), Harkleroad turned p ...

, Nicole Vaidišová and

Marion Bartoli Marion Bartoli (; born 2 October 1984) is a French former professional tennis player. Bartoli won the 2013 Wimbledon Championships singles title after previously being runner-up in 2007, and was a semifinalist at the 2011 French Open. She als ...

. Her two-sets win over Vaidišová, who was ranked 14 at the time, was her best win of the year. The following week in Berlin, Catalina beat

, who was ranked 14 at the time. It was her second win over a top-15 player in as many weeks. In May, she reached the quarterfinals in Istanbul (Tier III) for the first time. She reached her highest ranking of No. 35 on July 16.

2007

Catalina commenced the new season with a solid start, recording two quarterfinal appearances at the Gold Coast and Hobart in January. At the Gold Coast, she defeated Li Na who was ranked 21 at the time.

2014

Castaño retired from professional tennis after a diagnosis of

breast cancer Breast cancer is cancer that develops from breast tissue. Signs of breast cancer may include a lump in the breast, a change in breast shape, dimpling of the skin, milk rejection, fluid coming from the nipple, a newly inverted nipple, or a re ...

WTA career finals

Singles: 1 (runner-up)

Doubles: 2 (1 title, 1 runner-up)

WTA 125K series finals

Singles: 1 (runner-up)

Doubles: 1 (1 title)

ITF Circuit finals

Singles: 13 (6–7)

Doubles: 7 (4–3)

Performance timelines

Singles

Doubles

Head-to-head record

''Players who have been ranked world No. 1 are in boldface.'' *

- 0–1 *

Nadia Petrova Nadezhda Viktorovna "Nadia" Petrova (russian: Надежда Викторовна Петрова ; born 8 June 1982) is a Russian former professional tennis player. A former top-five player in both singles and doubles, she reached a career-high ...

- 0–1 *

Serena Williams Serena Jameka Williams (born September 26, 1981) is an American inactive professional tennis player. Considered among the greatest tennis players of all time, she was ranked world No. 1 in singles by the Women's Tennis Association (WTA) for ...

- 0–1

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Castano, Catalina 1979 births Living people People from Pereira, Colombia Colombian female tennis players Tennis players at the 2004 Summer Olympics Olympic tennis players of Colombia Tennis players at the 2011 Pan American Games Pan American Games medalists in tennis Pan American Games bronze medalists for Colombia Medalists at the 2011 Pan American Games 20th-century Colombian women 21st-century Colombian women