Mariana Mesa Pineda (born 1 April 1980) is a Colombian former professional tennis player.

Biography

Tennis career

Mesa, who grew up in the city of

Pereira Pereira (Portuguese and Galician for "pear tree") may refer to: People * Pereira (surname) Places *Brazil **Pereira (Bahia) (est. 1534) in the present-day Barra neighborhood of Salvador in Bahia **Pereira Barreto, municipality in São Paulo **Pe ...

, made her Fed Cup debut in 1995, having just turned 15. She featured in a total of 12 ties for Colombia during her career, mostly as doubles player, winning seven matches overall. 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 made most of her main-draw appearances at her home event, the

Copa Colsanitas The Copa Colsanitas is a women's professional tennis tournament held in Bogotá, Colombia at the Centro de Alto Rendimiento. Held since 1998, this WTA 250 tournament is played on outdoor clay courts A clay court is one of the types of tennis ...

, playing in every edition of the tournament from 1998 to 2000. She had her best performance in 1998, when she made the round of 16 of the singles and was a doubles semifinalist. Her only other singles main draw came at the

1999 Brasil Open The 1999 Brasil Open was a women's tennis tournament played on Clay court, outdoor clay courts in São Paulo, Brazil. It was part of WTA Tier IV Events, Tier IV of the 1999 WTA Tour. The tournament was held from October 4 through October 10, 1999. ...

, which she made as a qualifier. Mesa reached a best singles ranking on tour of 251 in the world and won five

ITF Women's Circuit The ITF Women's World Tennis Tour, previously known as the ITF Women's Circuit, is a series of professional tennis tournaments run by the International Tennis Federation for female professional tennis players. History It serves as a developmental ...

tournaments. As a doubles player she had a top ranking of 161, with seven ITF titles. At the

2000 Summer Olympics The 2000 Summer Olympics, officially the Games of the XXVII Olympiad and also known as Sydney 2000 (Dharug: ''Gadigal 2000''), the Millennium Olympic Games or the Games of the New Millennium, was an international multi-sport event held from 1 ...

in Sydney, Mesa represented Colombia in the doubles competition, with

Fabiola Zuluaga Fabiola Zuluaga (born 7 January 1979) is a retired tennis player from Colombia. She reached the Australian Open semifinals in 2004 and became the first Colombian tennis player to reach a Grand Slam semifinal. Zuluaga is one of the most successfu ...

as her partner.

Life after tennis

Mesa now coaches tennis and also works as broadcaster with

Win Sports Win Sports is a Colombian pay television sports channel that was launched on 29 November 2012. The channel's programming consists of news reporting, live programs and broadcasts of the Colombian football Categoría Primera A, Categoría Prime ...

. She studied political science at Universidad Javeriana.

ITF Circuit finals

Singles: 7 (5–2)

Doubles: 14 (7–7)

References

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Mesa, Mariana 1980 births Living people Colombian female tennis players Olympic tennis players for Colombia Tennis players at the 2000 Summer Olympics Colombian television presenters Sportspeople from Pereira, Colombia Pontifical Xavierian University alumni Colombian women television presenters 21st-century Colombian women