Julie Halard-Decugis (born 10 September 1970) is a French former professional

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 cov ...

player.

Tennis career

Halard-Decugis lived in

La Baule La Baule-Escoublac (; br, Ar Baol-Skoubleg, ), commonly referred to as La Baule, is a commune in the Loire-Atlantique department, Pays de la Loire, western France. A century-old seaside resort in southern Brittany with villas, casino, luxury h ...

, France, during the initial stages of her career and later moved to

Pully Pully () is a municipality in Switzerland in the canton of Vaud, located in the district of Lavaux-Oron. It is one of the eastern suburbs of the city of Lausanne, located on the shores of Lake Geneva (''Lac Léman'') and at the foot of the vin ...

, Switzerland. She turned professional in 1986. She won the

French Open The French Open (french: Internationaux de France de tennis), also known as Roland-Garros (), is a major tennis tournament held over two weeks at the Stade Roland Garros in Paris, France, beginning in late May each year. The tournament and ve ...

junior singles title in 1988 and was the Wimbledon junior singles runner-up in 1987. She retired from 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 tou ...

tennis circuit at the end of the 2000 season. Her highest WTA Tour singles and doubles rankings was number seven and number one respectively. She had been coached by Arnaud Decugis since 1989. Halard-Decugis won her first WTA Tour singles title in Puerto Rico. She enjoyed her best season in 1996, when she won her first WTA Tour Tier II singles title in Paris and finished the year with a career-high season-ending singles ranking of No. 15 and as the No. 1 singles player from France. This occurred despite the fact that her playing schedule in the second half of 1996 was curtailed because of a wrist injury sustained during the

Fed Cup The Billie Jean King Cup (or the BJK Cup) is the premier international team competition in women's tennis, launched as the Federation Cup in 1963 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the International Tennis Federation (ITF). The name was chan ...

semifinal match against Spain. She only played two tournaments in late 1997 because of injuries. By winning the singles title in

Rosmalen Rosmalen () is a town in the province of North Brabant, in the south of the Netherlands. The town is located 6 kilometers east of the city of 's-Hertogenbosch (Den Bosch) and has been part of that Municipalities of the Netherlands, municipality si ...

in 1998, she became the 20th player to have won singles titles on all four surfaces in the Open Era. Halard also won the singles and doubles titles in

Pattaya Pattaya ( th, พัทยา, , ) is a city in Thailand. It is on the east coast of the Gulf of Thailand, about southeast of Bangkok, within, but not part of, Bang Lamung district in the province of Chonburi. Pattaya City ( th, เมือ� ...

that year, and broke into the top 10 singles ranking in August 1999, becoming the fifth Frenchwoman after

Françoise Dürr Françoise Dürr (born 25 December 1942; sometimes referred to by English writers as Frankie Durr) is a retired French tennis player. She won 50 singles titles and over 60 doubles titles. According to Lance Tingay, Bud Collins, and the Women ...

Mary Pierce Mary Caroline Pierce (born 15 January 1975) is a retired tennis professional who represented France internationally in team competitions and the Olympics. She was born in Canada to an American father and a French mother, and holds citizenship of ...

Nathalie Tauziat Nathalie Tauziat (born 17 October 1967) is a French former professional tennis player. She was the runner-up in women's singles at the 1998 Wimbledon Championships and runner-up in the women's doubles at the 2001 US Open partnering Kimberly ...

and

Amélie Mauresmo Amélie Simone Mauresmo (; born 5 July 1979) is a French former world No. 1 tennis player and tournament director. Mauresmo won two major singles titles at the 2006 Australian Open and Wimbledon Championships, and also won the silver medal in s ...

to do so. In 1999, she won WTA Tour singles titles in

Auckland Auckland (pronounced ) ( mi, Tāmaki Makaurau) is a large metropolitan city in the North Island of New Zealand. The most populous urban area in the country and the fifth largest city in Oceania, Auckland has an urban population of about I ...

and

Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1.145 million in the city proper, 2.92 million in the We ...

and was runner-up on three other occasions. Between 15 November 1999 and 9 January 2000, Julie Halard, Nathalie Tauziat, Amélie Mauresmo and Mary Pierce were all ranked inside the singles top 10, the first time France had four players ranked among the singles top 10. 2000 was to be the final and perhaps the finest year of Halard's professional playing career. She reached the

Australian Open The Australian Open is a tennis tournament held annually at Melbourne Park in Melbourne, Australia. The tournament is the first of the four Grand Slam tennis events held each year, preceding the French Open, Wimbledon, and the US Ope ...

singles quarterfinal for the second time, captured the second WTA Tour Tier II title of her career in

Eastbourne Eastbourne () is a town and seaside resort in East Sussex, on the south coast of England, east of Brighton and south of London. Eastbourne is immediately east of Beachy Head, the highest chalk sea cliff in Great Britain and part of the l ...

and reached her career-high singles ranking of No. 7 in February. Halard was also runner-up in Tokyo's Princess Cup in October and won the doubles title with

Ai Sugiyama is a Japanese former tennis player. She reached the world No. 1 ranking in women's doubles on the WTA Tour and had a career-high singles ranking of world No. 8, achieved on February 9, 2004. In her career, she won six singles and 38 doubles t ...

. The following week, she won both the singles and doubles titles at the Japan Open in Tokyo, saving three match points in the final to defeat the defending champion

Amy Frazier Amy Frazier (born September 19, 1972) is a former professional tennis player from the United States. She won eight singles and four doubles titles on the WTA Tour. On February 27, 1995 she achieved a career-high singles ranking of No. 13, while ...

. On her 30th birthday, Halard won the 2000 US Open women's doubles title with Ai Sugiyama, her only Grand Slam title as a professional. The pair also reached the final at Wimbledon, the semifinal at the

and the quarterfinal at the

that year. Halard-Decugis won nine other doubles titles in 2000, five of them with Sugiyama, and became the first Frenchwoman to attain the No. 1 doubles ranking in the Open Era. Halard-Decugis represented her country in the Federation Cup Fed Cup from 1990 to 2000 and in the

Olympic Games The modern Olympic Games or Olympics (french: link=no, Jeux olympiques) are the leading international sporting events featuring summer and winter sports competitions in which thousands of athletes from around the world participate in a multi ...

in 1992 and 2000.

Personal life

She married her coach, Arnaud Decugis, on 22 September 1995. Arnaud Decugis is the great nephew of Max Decugis, a leading tennis player from France during the early 20th century. The couple have three children

Grand Slam finals

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

WTA career finals

Singles: 21 (12 titles, 9 runner-ups)

Doubles: 25 (15 titles, 10 runner-ups)

ITF Circuit finals

Singles: 2 (2–0)

Doubles: 4 (2–2)

Grand Slam performance timelines

Singles

Doubles

Head-to-head records

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4—8 *

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3-0

References

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Halard-Decugis, Julie 1970 births Expatriate sportspeople in Switzerland French expatriate sportspeople in Switzerland French female tennis players French Open junior champions Hopman Cup competitors Living people Olympic tennis players of France Sportspeople from Loire-Atlantique People from Lavaux-Oron District Sportspeople from Versailles, Yvelines Tennis players at the 1992 Summer Olympics Tennis players at the 2000 Summer Olympics US Open (tennis) champions Grand Slam (tennis) champions in women's doubles Grand Slam (tennis) champions in girls' singles WTA number 1 ranked doubles tennis players ITF World Champions