Stephanie Devillé (born 24 July 1976) is a former professional

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 Belgium.

Biography

Born in Antwerp, Devillé began playing tennis at the age of six and was coached by Christophe Delzenne. She was a member of the Belgian team which won the 1992

World Youth Cup The FIFA U-20 World Cup is the biennial football world championship tournament for FIFA members' men's national teams with players under the age of 20. The competition has been staged every two years since the inaugural tournament in 1977 when i ...

(now known as Junior Fed Cup), along with

Laurence Courtois Laurence Courtois (born 18 January 1976) is a former professional female tennis player from Belgium. Courtois, who was born in Kortrijk, won four doubles titles on the WTA Tour The WTA Tour (also known as the Hologic WTA Tour for sponsorship ...

and

Nancy Feber Nancy Feber (born 5 February 1976) is a retired Belgian tennis player. As a junior player, she won four Grand Slam titles – one in singles and three in doubles. Feber won French Open twice, in 1992 and 1993, both times in doubles with Laurence ...

. In 1996 she had her breakthrough year on tour. After winning ITF tournaments in Bordeaux and Budapest, she made her WTA Tour main draw debut in

Palermo Palermo ( ; ; , locally also or ) is a city in southern Italy, the capital (political), capital of both the autonomous area, autonomous region of Sicily and the Metropolitan City of Palermo, the city's surrounding metropolitan province. The ...

, as a qualifier. She defeated

Sandra Cecchini Anna-Maria "Sandra" Cecchini (; born 27 February 1965) is a retired tennis player from Italy. Career Cecchini turned professional in 1984. She won 12 singles and 11 doubles titles on the WTA Tour. She had career wins over Chris Evert, Arantxa ...

in the first round, then was rewarded her second round match against

Irina Spîrlea Irina Spîrlea (born 26 March 1974) is a retired tennis player from Romania who turned professional in 1990. She won four singles and six doubles titles. Spîrlea reached her career-high ranking on the WTA Tour on 13 October 1997, when she becam ...

when the Romanian was defaulted for swearing in the first game of the deciding set. Her run ended with a three-set loss to

Jana Kandarr Jana Kandarr (born 21 September 1976) is a German former top 50 professional tennis player. Kandarr is notable for playing with her right hand, even though she is left-handed. Career Kandarr moved with her parents from Halle to Karlsruhe afte ...

in the quarter-finals. She improved on that performance by making the semi-finals of the Styrian Open later in the season, then made it through qualifying at the 1996 US Open to feature in the main draw of a grand slam for the first time. She won her third ITF title of the year at Sedona and improved her ranking from 279 to 74 by the end of the season. At the

1997 Australian Open The 1997 Australian Open was a tennis tournament played on outdoor hard courts at Melbourne Park in Melbourne in Victoria in Australia. It was the 85th edition of the Australian Open and was held from 13 through 26 January 1997. Prior to the ...

she overcame

Denisa Chládková Denisa Chládková (born 8 February 1979) is a former professional tennis player from the Czech Republic. Life and career Chládková did not win any WTA Tour titles, but she is probably best remembered for reaching the Wimbledon quarterfinal ...

in the first round, 8–6 in the third set, then suffered the disappointment of having to retire injured against

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 ...

in the second round. With only one game completed, Devillé went down with a sprained ankle and was unable to carry on. She didn't return to action until March and that month reached her career best ranking of 61. From 1998 she played mainly on the ITF circuit. Devillé has commentated on tennis for

RTBF The ("Belgian Radio-television of the French Community"), shortened to RTBF (branded as rtbf.be), is a public broadcasting, public service broadcaster for the French Community of Belgium, French-speaking Community of Belgium. Its counterpart i ...

and also coaches tennis locally.

ITF Circuit finals

Singles: 11 (8–3)

Doubles: 1 (1–0)

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Deville, Stephanie 1976 births Living people Belgian female tennis players Tennis players from Antwerp 20th-century Belgian women