Paola Suárez (; born 23 June 1976) is a retired

tennis Tennis is a List of racket sports, racket sport that is played either individually against a single opponent (singles (tennis), singles) or between two teams of two players each (doubles (tennis), doubles). Each player uses a tennis racket st ...

player from

Argentina Argentina, officially the Argentine Republic, is a country in the southern half of South America. It covers an area of , making it the List of South American countries by area, second-largest country in South America after Brazil, the fourt ...

. 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, and holding the No. 1 doubles ranking for 87 non-consecutive weeks. She was also a singles top ten player and semifinalist at the 2004 French Open.

Career

Suárez began playing professional tennis at the age of 15. In 1994, she joined the professional tour as a singles player. Suárez won four WTA titles (2004 Canberra, 2003 Vienna, 1998 & 2001 Bogotá) and 12 other minor tournaments. In 2004, she reached her only Grand Slam singles semi-final by defeating the 18th seed and future Wimbledon champion

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, but lost to

Elena Dementieva Elena Viacheslavovna Dementieva (, ; born 15 October 1981) is a Russian former professional tennis player. She was WTA rankings, ranked world No. 3 in women's singles and world No. 5 in women's doubles by the Women's Tennis Association, WTA. Dem ...

. That year, she reached her highest WTA ranking of No. 9, to become the highest-ranked Argentine women's player since Gabriela Sabatini achieved the No. 3 ranking in 1989. Also in 2004, she won the bronze medal at the Olympic Games in Athens for the women's doubles with Patricia Tarabini. She had success in singles but her best results came in doubles, winning more than half a dozen titles partnering fellow Argentine Laura Montalvo. However Suárez's more long-standing doubles partnership was with the Spaniard Virginia Ruano Pascual, with whom she won 32 of her 39 titles. Besides numerous WTA Tour titles, they won the

French Open The French Open (), also known as Roland-Garros (), is a tennis tournament organized by the French Tennis Federation annually at Stade Roland Garros in Paris, France. It is chronologically the second of the four Grand Slam (tennis), Grand Slam ...

on four occasions, the US Open three times, and the Australian Open in 2004. Suárez and Ruano Pascual were the No. 1 female pair for three consecutive years after 9 September 2002 and were the WTA Tour Doubles Team of the Year in 2002, 2003 and 2004. They also reached nine straight Grand Slam finals, two short of Navratilova and Shriver's record of eleven. In 2005, Suárez announced her forthcoming retirement for personal reasons. In June of that year, she underwent a labrum hip clinical intervention, with a recovery time of three to four months. She restarted playing in Sydney in January 2006 with Ruano Pascual, reaching the final, but suffered a calf injury short after. Later that year, she also reached the final of

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 * W ...

with Ruano Pascual, marking her third appearance in a final there. Suárez returned to the circuit with a victory over Dinara Safina, ranked No. 15, in the San Diego Open singles tournament. On 1 September 2007, Suárez retired after losing in the mixed doubles second round at the US Open. She partnered Kevin Ullyett and lost to

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and

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, 5–7, 4–6. She briefly returned to the WTA doubles tour in

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, partnering her fellow Argentinian Gisela Dulko. The pair played at the London Summer Olympics but lost in the first round. In her career, Suárez earned more than $5.2 million, with four singles titles on the

WTA Tour The WTA Tour (also known as the Hologic WTA Tour for sponsorship reasons) is a worldwide top-tier tennis tour for women and organized by the Women's Tennis Association. The second-tier tour is the WTA 125 series, and third-tier is the ITF Wome ...

, and eight doubles Grand Slam titles.

Significant finals

Grand Slam tournaments

Doubles: 14 (8 titles, 6 runner-ups)

Mixed doubles: 2 (2 runner-ups)

Olympic Games

Doubles: 1 (bronze medal)

WTA Tour finals

Singles: 8 (4 titles, 4 runner-ups)

Doubles: 69 (44 titles, 25 runner-ups)

ITF Circuit finals

Singles (12–4)

Doubles (7–6)

Performance timelines

Singles

Doubles

Record against top-10 players

Suárez's match record against players who have been ranked in the top 10, with those who have been ranked No. 1 in boldface *

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

5–4 * Mary Pierce 4–2 * Barbara Schett 3–2 * Jelena Dokic 2–0 * Anna Kournikova 2–0 *

Svetlana Kuznetsova Svetlana Aleksandrovna Kuznetsova (born 27 June 1985) is a Russian former professional tennis player. She was ranked as high as world No. 2 in singles and world No. 3 in doubles by the Women's Tennis Association, WTA. Kuznetsova won 18 singl ...

2–0 * Alicia Molik 2–0 * Dinara Safina 2–0 *

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2–1 * Francesca Schiavone 2–1 *

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2–2 * Sandrine Testud 2–2 * Magdalena Maleeva 2–3 * Amélie Mauresmo 2–3 * Ai Sugiyama 2–3 *

Vera Zvonareva Vera Igorevna Zvonareva ( rus, Вера Игоревна Звонарёва, p=ˈvʲerə ˈiɡərʲɪvnə zvənɐˈrʲɵvə, a=Vera zvonareva.ogg; born 7 September 1984) is a Russian former professional tennis player. Her career-high singles ran ...

2–3 *

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1–0 *

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1–0 * Barbara Paulus 1–0 * Lucie Šafářová 1–0 *

1–0 * Nathalie Tauziat 1–0 * Andrea Temesvári 1–0 *

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1–1 * Iva Majoli 1–1 * Anastasia Myskina 1–1 * Mary Joe Fernández 1–2 * Chanda Rubin 1–2 *

1–3 *

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1–5 *

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0–1 * Anna Chakvetadze 0–1 * Zina Garrison 0–1 *

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0–1 *

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0–1 * Brenda Schultz-McCarthy 0–1 * Irina Spîrlea 0–1 * Helena Suková 0–1 *

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0–2 * Conchita Martínez 0–2 *

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0–2 * Venus Williams 0–2 * Natasha Zvereva 0–2 * Jennifer Capriati 0–3 * Kim Clijsters 0–3 *

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0–3 * Dominique Monami 0–4 *

Arantxa Sánchez Vicario Aránzazu Isabel María "Arantxa" Sánchez Vicario (; born 18 December 1971) is a Spanish former professional tennis player. She was ranked as the world No. 1 in women's singles by the Women's Tennis Association (WTA) for 12 weeks, as well as ...

0–4 *

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0–7

References

External links

* * *
Ole 2005, on her retirement

Paola and Virginia

Paola Suarez
at th
TheTennisTimes
{{DEFAULTSORT:Suarez, Paola 1976 births Living people Argentine female tennis players Australian Open (tennis) champions French Open champions Olympic bronze medalists for Argentina Olympic medalists for Argentina in tennis Olympic tennis players for Argentina Sportspeople from Pergamino Tennis players from Buenos Aires Province Tennis players at the 2000 Summer Olympics Tennis players at the 2004 Summer Olympics Tennis players at the 2012 Summer Olympics US Open (tennis) champions Hopman Cup competitors Grand Slam (tennis) champions in women's doubles Medalists at the 2004 Summer Olympics WTA number 1 ranked doubles tennis players ITF World Champions