Karina Habšudová (; born 2 August 1973) is a Slovak former professional tennis player. She has been ranked as high as 10 in the world (1997). Together with

Karol Kučera Karol Kučera (born 4 March 1974) is a retired ATP professional male tennis player from Slovakia. He achieved a career-high singles ranking of World No. 6 in September 1998, reaching the semi-finals of the Australian Open the same year. In 20 ...

, she won the

Hopman Cup The Hopman Cup is an international eight-team indoor hardcourt tennis tournament that played mixed-gender teams on a country-by-country basis.It was held in Perth, Western Australia each year from 1989 to 2019, before being replaced on the calen ...

in 1998. Her best performance at a Grand Slam tournament came when she got to the quarterfinals of the

1996 French Open The 1996 French Open was a tennis tournament that took place on the outdoor clay courts at the Stade Roland Garros in Paris, France. The tournament was held from 27 May until 9 June. It was the 100th staging of the French Open, and the second Gra ...

, defeating

Kristin Godridge Kristin Godridge (born 7 February 1973) is a retired tennis player from Australia who competed 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 th ...

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 ...

, Martina Hingis, and

Anke Huber Anke Huber (born 4 December 1974) is a German retired top-five professional tennis player. She was the runner-up in women's singles at the 1996 Australian Open and the 1995 WTA Finals. Huber won twelve singles and one doubles title on the WTA ...

before losing to

Arantxa Sánchez Vicario Aránzazu Isabel María "Arantxa" Sánchez Vicario (; born 18 December 1971) is a Spanish former world No. 1 tennis player. She won 14 Grand Slam titles: four in singles, six in women's doubles, and four in mixed doubles. She also won four Ol ...

, 8–10 in the third set. She also had a successful junior career. She won the girls' singles at the 1991 US Open, and was junior No. 1 for some time.

Biography

Born in

Bojnice Bojnice (german: Weinitz; hu, Bajmóc) is a historical town in central Slovakia located on the Nitra river, near the city of Prievidza. The town is situated just below the Bojnice Castle. It has a population of around 5,000. Bojnice is best k ...

, Czechoslovakia, Habšudová originally trained as a gymnast but at the age of ten, she switched to tennis under the encouragement of her mother, herself a former amateur tennis player. By the age of fourteen, she had already become the top junior player in Czechoslovakia. In 1990, she was crowned ITF Junior World Champion, and the following year she won the girls' singles title at the US Open. As a professional, she made the fourth round of the

1991 Australian Open The 1991 Australian Open was a tennis tournament played on outdoor hard courts at Flinders Park in Melbourne in Victoria in Australia. It was the 79th edition of the Australian Open and was held from 14 through 27 January 1991. Seniors Men's s ...

while still a schoolgirl, but her early promise was curtailed by health problems and injuries, including a bout of pneumonia in 1993 and an ankle injury the following year. After suffering another injury just as she had made it to the top 30 in the spring of 1995, she bounced back to enjoy her most successful year in 1996, where she had results such as reaching the final of the

German Open German Open is a name given to many sports events established in Germany, and include: *German Open (badminton), an annual badminton tournament held since 1955. * German Open (golf), was a golf tournament on the European Tour *German Masters, a snoo ...

and the quarterfinals of 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 ...

. At the latter event, she beat Martina Hingis and

and served for a place in the semifinals against

, but ultimately lost 8–10 in the third set. Habšudová eventually broke the top 10 in early 1997, after reaching the final of the

Generali Ladies Linz The Linz Open, currently sponsored by Generali Gruppe, is a women's tennis tournament held in Linz, Austria. It is played on indoor hardcourts. The inaugural event took place in 1987 in Wels, Austria and was organized by the ITF as a $10,000 tou ...

, becoming the first woman representing Slovakia to do so. Though she continued to play on the tour until 2003, she never again matched the same success of her breakthrough season, with later highlights including winning the

in 1998 and her only WTA singles title at the Austrian Open in 1999. In 2001, she reached the semifinals of the Wimbledon mixed doubles tournament partnering

David Rikl David Rikl (born 27 February 1971) is a former professional tennis player from the Czech Republic. His success came mostly in doubles, winning 30 titles and finishing runner-up at the 2004 US Open and 2001 Wimbledon Championships Men's Double ...

. Following her retirement, she worked for several years as a sports editor. She married her husband Milan Cílek in 2003 and they have three children together.

WTA career finals

Singles: 5 (1 title, 4 runner-ups)

Doubles: 12 (6 titles, 6 runner-ups)

ITF Circuit finals

Singles: 11 (6–5)

Doubles: 3 (3–0)

Head-to-head record against top 10 players

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

Dominique Monami Dominique Monami (born 31 May 1973) is a former tennis player from Belgium. She is her country's first ever top-10 tennis professional. Monami was born in Verviers. In 1995, she married her coach Bart Van Roost, with whom she has a daughter, a ...

4–1 *

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 ...

0–2 *

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 ...

0–1 * Martina Hingis 4–3 *

Elena Dementieva Elena Viacheslavovna Dementieva (, ; born 15 October 1981) is a Russian former professional tennis player. She won the singles gold medal at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, having previously won the silver medal at the 2000 Olympics in Sydney. ...

0–3 *

Steffi Graf Stefanie Maria Graf ( , ; born 14 June 1969) is a German former professional tennis player. Widely regarded as one of the greatest tennis players of all time, she was ranked world No. 1 for a record 377 weeks and won 22 major singles titles, ...

0–4 *

Monica Seles Monica Seles (; hu, Széles Mónika, ; sr, Моника Селеш, Monika Seleš; born December 2, 1973) is a retired professional tennis player who represented Yugoslavia and the United States. A former world No. 1, she won nine Grand Sla ...

0–2 *

Justine Henin Justine Henin (; born 1 June 1982) is a Belgian former professional tennis player. She spent a total of 117 weeks as the world No. 1 and was the year-end No. 1 in 2003, 2006 and 2007. Henin, coming from a country with limited success in tenni ...

0–1 *

1–6 *

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

1–3 * Ai Sugiyama 1–2 *

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 ...

0–1 *

Conchita Martínez "Conchita" Martínez Bernat (born 16 April 1972) is a Spanish former professional tennis player. She was the first Spaniard to win the women's singles title at Wimbledon, doing so in 1994. Martínez also was the runner-up at the 1998 Austral ...

2–6 *

Kim Clijsters Kim Antonie Lode Clijsters (; born 8 June 1983) is a Belgian former professional tennis player. Clijsters reached the world No. 1 ranking in both singles and doubles, having held both rankings simultaneously in 2003. She won six major titles, ...

1–0

References

External links

* * * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Habsudova, Karina 1973 births Hopman Cup competitors Living people People from Bojnice Slovak female tennis players Olympic tennis players of Slovakia Tennis players at the 1996 Summer Olympics Tennis players at the 2000 Summer Olympics Wimbledon junior champions US Open (tennis) junior champions Grand Slam (tennis) champions in girls' singles Grand Slam (tennis) champions in girls' doubles Czechoslovak female tennis players