Anna-Lena Grönefeld

Anna-Lena Grönefeld (born on June 4, 1985 in Nordhorn, Lower Saxony, then West Germany) is a professional tennis player from Germany. She turned professional in 2003.

As of February 2006, Grönefeld was the No. 1 tennis player from Germany. She was coached and trained by Rafael Font de Mora in Scottsdale, Arizona until 2006. Anna-Lena is currently coached by former German pro tennis player Dirk Dier (since the WTA tournament in Stuttart in October 2006). She now lives and trains in Saarbrücken, Germany.

Career

2003–07: Breakthrough

In June, 2003 she captured the prestigious French Open Junior title, becoming the first player from Germany since 1957 to accomplish this feat. In 2002 she was the Singles Champion of both the Belgium and Frankfurt International Championships and a finalist at the Orange Bowl. In July 2003, she won the Apple and Eve Newsday Long Island Classic, held in Woodbury, New York, defeating Bethanie Mattek in the final. She is an accomplished doubles player winning the French Open title and reaching the finals at Wimbledon. As a result of her tennis successes in 2003, Grönefeld had achieved the Junior World ranking of #1 in singles and doubles. She launched her professional career début under the direction of the USA Academy and Rafael Font de Mora.

In 2006 she represented Germany along with Nicolas Kiefer at the Hopman Cup. She went on to win her first title at the Abierto Mexicano TELCEL in Acapulco, and completed a career best showing at Roland Garros, by reaching the quarterfinals, where she lost to Justine Henin. Her ranking peaked at 14. The good form was short-lived, as the German failed to progress beyond the quarterfinals of most remaining tournaments for the year. She split with Font de Mora in September 2006 and is currently coached by Dirk Dier.

Her run of bad form continued into 2007, and as of June 19, Grönefeld had been eliminated in the first round of her last five tournaments. Her ranking subsequently dipped below the top 100 for the first time since 2004. On 20 August 2007, Grönefeld announced that she would be taking a break from the tour, coming back in 2008.

2008–09: Comeback

Grönefeld made her official comeback on 3 May 2008, at the 75k ITF event in Zagreb, Croatia. She was seeded fourth in the qualifying draw, winning three consecutive matches to reach the main draw. She then won a tournament in Zlín in the Czech Republic by beating Jelena Kostanić Tošić in the final in three sets for the first title of her comeback. Grönefeld went on to win another ITF title just a week later at the 10k event in Alkmaar in the Netherlands, defeating Marlot Meddens in the final, 6-1 6-1. Anna-Lena then won another title for the third straight week, this time at the 25k event at Périgueux in France, defeating Frenchwoman Florence Haring in the final in straight sets, 6-3 6-3.

Grönefeld took advantage of her feed-up wildcard into the Tier IV Gaz de France Grand Prix in Budapest (a result of winning the 75k Zlín ITF event), defeating Hungarian wildcard Palma Kiraly 6-0 6-4. She followed up her first round win with a straight-sets, 6-1 6-4, upset over 5th seeded Lucie Šafářová of the Czech Republic.

Grönefeld then played a Tier III tournament, the Gastein Ladies (Austria), where she beat Julia Vakulenko of the Ukraine in the first round; was however beaten in three tight sets (7-5 4-6 6-4) in the second round by 4th seed Pauline Parmentier of France, the eventual champion.

Her good form allowed Grönefeld to win another 50k ITF event, the Ceisa Cup in Rimini at the beginning of August. She also reached the final of the GHI Bronx Tennis Classic (ITF tournament) in New York, where she lost to Elena Bovina.

After winning her 3 qualification rounds, Grönefeld played in the 2008 US Open, and reached the 4th round of the main draw, only losing toDinara Safina. Prior to her loss to Safina, Anna-Lena won 6 matches in a row without losing a single set, the highlights being her 6-4 6-2 victory over Daniela Hantuchová (WTA 12) in the first round and the 6-4 7-5 victory over Alizé Cornet (WTA 17) in the third round.

After losing against Austrian runner-up Tamira Paszek in the first round at the Commonwealth Bank Tennis Classic in Bali, Anna Lena received a wildcard for the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix in Stuttgart but lost in the first round against the 6th seeded Venus Williams (WTA 8). With her doubles partner, Patty Schnyder, Grönefeld however won the doubles competition 6–2, 6–4 against the top seeds Kveta Peschke and Rennae Stubbs.

After winning the first two matches at the qualification for the Zurich Open, Grönefeld lost her third match against Czech Petra Kvitová. With doubles partner Patty Schnyder she has now reached the finals.

Grönefeld now has a singles win loss record of 38-9 in 2008 (as of October 14, 2008) and remains in the top 100 (WTA 79, as of October 13, 2008).

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Mark Knowles

Mark Knowles (born September 4, 1971 in Nassau, Bahamas) is a professional male tennis player from the Bahamas. He was awarded All American honors at UCLA in both singles and doubles. His highest singles ranking on the ATP was World No. 93. He has been very successful in doubles partnering with Canadian Daniel Nestor. The pair have won the 2002 Australian Open, the 2004 U.S. Open, and the 2007 French Open. He also won the 2009 Wimbledon mixed doubles title with Anna-Lena Grönefeld of Germany. Mark is known for his "quick hands and unbelievable volleys".

On July 5, 2006, Knowles participated in the longest match in Wimbledon history, lasting 6 hours and 9 minutes.

Knowles has also played singles and doubles for the Bahamas Davis Cup team for more than 13 years and he is a five-time Olympian.

He annually holds his highly regarded charity tournament on Paradise Island, off his home island of New Providence, from which all proceeds go to local children's charities. The Mark Knowles Celebrity Tennis Invitational debuted in 2001 and it is attended by many great players such as Andre Agassi and James Blake, Jim Courier, Tommy Haas and The Bryan Brothers.

Knowles was elected (by his peers) as Vice President of the ATP and was selected to be on the ATP Drug Force Council.

His longterm partnership with Daniel Nestor ended after the 2007 U.S. Open. Nestor decided it was time to try playing with a new partner. Knowles was expected to play with former Grand Slam champion in doubles Mahesh Bhupathi in the fall but Bhupathi is out until the end of the year due to back surgery.

Knowles partnered with Nestor once again, and won the 2007 Tennis Masters Cup. They defeated Simon Aspelin and Julian Knowle 6–3, 6–2 to take their first Tennis Masters Cuptitle. This team doesn't plan to play with each other again.

On September 9, 2007, Mark announced www.markknowlestennis.com as his official website. Knowles is married and has two children.

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Venus Williams

Venus Ebony Starr Williams (born June 17, 1980) is an American professionaltennis player. She has been ranked World No. 1 by the Women's Tennis Association(WTA) on three separate occasions; as of February 1, 2010, she is ranked World No. 5. She is the reigning Australian Open, Wimbledon and US Open doubles champion and has won 20 Grand Slam titles: seven in women's singles, eleven in women's doubles and two in mixed doubles. In addition, she has won three Olympic gold medals, one in women's singles and two in women's doubles.

Williams reached the US Open finals at the age of 17, becoming the first woman since 1978 to reach a US Open final on her début and was the first unseeded female US Open finalist since 1958. After her breakthrough, Williams breached the top ten on the WTA world rankings for the first time in 1998 when she won the Lipton Championships in Miami. Between 2000 and 2001, Williams won four of the six Grand Slam tournaments she entered. Her 35-match winning streak remains the longest of the millennium. She became the World No. 1 for the first time in February 2002.

Williams suffered an abdominal injury in mid-2003 which prevented her from playing. Upon her return in 2004, she experienced inconsistent results. In 2005, she won her first Grand Slam title in four years at Wimbledon, but since then she suffered from a wrist injury and only played six events in 2006. Her world rankings suffered as a result, being World No. 54 in February 2006. However, Williams eventually won another Grand Slam title at the Wimbledon in 2007, becoming the lowest-seeded and lowest-ranked Wimbledon champion in history. Williams returned to the top ten later that year and has since competed in every Grand Slam event. She returned to the top three for the first time in six years in May 2009.

Williams is the elder sister of the current World No.1 tennis player, Serena Williams. The sisters have played each other in 21 professional matches dating back to 1998, with Venus winning 10 matches played between them as of July 2009. Their meeting in the final of the 2001 US Open was the first Grand Slam final contested by two sisters in the open era. As of July 2009, they have met in eight Grand Slam finals, with Venus winning two of those. Between the 2002 French Open and the 2003 Australian Open, the sisters met in all four Grand Slam finals, the first time in the open era that the same two players had contested four consecutive Grand Slam finals.

Personal Life
On December 13, 2007, Williams received her associate degree in Fashion Design from the Art Institute of Fort Lauderdale with Cum Laude honors and a 3.5 GPA.

Williams's longtime boyfriend, pro golfer Hank Kuehne, has been a visible presence since Wimbledon 2007, holding her hand during long rain delays and clapping support from the players' box along with her parents and younger sister Serena. "He's a great guy", Williams said. "He understands competition. He's very supportive. I love having him here and everyone else in the box, too."

In 2003, Venus and Serena Williams's older sister Yetunde Price, 31, was shot dead near the courts on which the sisters once practiced. Price was the Williams sisters' personal assistant. The Williams family issued this statement shortly after the death: "We are extremely shocked, saddened and devastated by the shooting death of our beloved Yetunde. She was our nucleus and our rock. She was a personal assistant, confidante, and adviser to her sisters, and her death leaves a void that can never be filled. Our grief is overwhelming, and this is the saddest day of our lives."

Williams said her family's faith as Jehovah's Witnesses has helped her tremendously.


Entrepreneur

Williams is the chief executive officer of her interior design firm "V Starr Interiors" located in Jupiter, Florida. Williams's company designed the set of the Tavis Smiley Show on PBS, the Olympic athletes' apartments as part of the U.S. bid package for New York City to host the 2012 Olympic Games, and residences and businesses in the Palm Beach, Florida area.

In 2007, Williams teamed with retailer Steve & Barry's to launch her own fashion line EleVen. "I love fashion and the idea that I am using my design education to actually create clothing and footwear that I will wear on and off the tennis court is a dream come true for me. The vision has been to create a collection that will allow women to enjoy an active lifestyle while remaining fashionable at the same time. I'm thrilled with everything we've created to launch EleVen."

In 2001, Williams was named one of the 30 most powerful women in America by the Ladies Home Journal.

In June 2009, Venus was named 77th in the Top 100 Most Powerful Celebrities compiled by Forbes magazine.

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Nenad Zimonjić

Nenad Zimonjić; born June 4, 1976 in Belgrade, Serbia, then SFR Yugoslavia) is a professional Serbian tennis player who is currently ranked World No. 2 in men's doubles. He is the second tennis player from Serbia to hold the highest doubles ranking, after Slobodan Živojinović. On May 18, Nestor and Zimonjic advanced back to the top after winning four out of their last five tournaments.

Career

Zimonjić turned pro in 1995 and remained relatively unknown outside his native country until a surprise victory in the Mixed Doubles at the 2004 Australian Open. Paired for the first time with Russian Elena Bovina, he beat defending champions Martina Navratilova and Leander Paes in straight sets in an hour and nine minutes, 6–1, 7–6 (3). Alongside his current Mixed Doubles partner Katarina Srebotnik of Slovenia, he won the 2006 French Open crown with a straight-sets victory over Daniel Nestor and Elena Likhovtseva, 6–3, 6–4. At the 2006 Wimbledon Championships, Zimonjić reached the final of the Men's Doubles (alongside France's Fabrice Santoro) and the quarter-finals of the Mixed Doubles.

In 2007, Zimonjić reached the 2007 French Open mixed doubles final as the defending champions with Katarina Srebotnik and lost to Nathalie Dechy and Andy Ram. He left Fabrice Santoro after Wimbledon and teamed with Mahesh Bhupathi until after the 2007 U.S. Open. After the U.S. Open, Nenad left Bhupathi and partnered with Daniel Nestor who won the French Open earlier in the year alongside Mark Knowles. The team won the 2007 St. Petersburg Open without losing a set.

While Zimonjić is known as a doubles specialist, he has recorded two big wins in his singles career. In 2004 he defeated Andre Agassi 6–2 7–6 in St Pölten and in 2005 on the grass of Halle he defeated Nicolas Kiefer 6–7(1) 6–3 6–4, both of these were first round victories. At the 2008 Wimbledon tennis tournament, Zimonjić won his first Doubles Grand Slam triumph with Daniel Nestor of Canada.

In 2009, Zimonjić won the World Team Cup as a part of the Serbian team. His partner Victor Troicki and him won two decisive games against Italian and Argentinian teams; as a result, Serbia has finished first in its group and then proceeded to beat Germany in the final encounter.

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Daniel Nestor

Daniel Mark Nestor (born on September 4, 1972, in Belgrade, Serbia, is a Serbian-born Canadian tennis player from the Toronto, Ontario, area.

In his career so far he has won 65 men's doubles titles, including a gold medal at the 2000 Summer Olympics, the Tennis Masters Cup, and 5 Grand Slam men's doubles titles. In addition, Nestor won the 2007 Australian Open mixed doubles title with Elena Likhovtseva. This pairing also reached the finals of the 2006 Australian Open and the 2006 French Open. Nestor reclaimed the Men's doubles world #1 ranking, after winning doubles at Wimbledon. On July 4, 2009, Nestor and his partner, Nenad Zimonjić, repeated as doubles champions at Wimbledon. His 65 doubles titles makes him the most decorated champion active and he is the only player in tennis history to have won all the Grand Slams and Masters Series events at least once.

Tennis career

He won three Grand Slam doubles titles together with longterm partner Mark Knowles of the Bahamas. The tandem won the 2002 Australian Open, the 2004 U.S. Open and the 2007 French Open. He and Knowles also reached the final of the 1995 Australian Open, the 1998 French Open and U.S. Open, the 2002 French Open and Wimbledon, the 2003 Australian Open and the 2005 Wimbledon He became the number one ranked doubles player in the world in August, 2002. Nestor's career high singles ranking is World No. 58, which he reached in August, 1999. In mixed doubles, he reached the 2003 U.S. Open final and the 2006 Australian Open final, as well as winning the mixed doubles event at the 2007 Australian Open with partner Elena Likhovtseva.

In the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney, Australia, Nestor and partner Sébastien Lareau won a gold medal in men's doubles tennis.

He has been a member of the Canadian Davis Cup team since 1992. He first came to prominence in the public eye that year by defeating Stefan Edberg in a hard fought match in Vancouver.

Nestor won his first doubles title in Bogotá, Colombia with Knowles in 1994. They defeated French Open champions Luke and Murphy Jensen in the final.

On July 5, 2006, he participated in the longest match in Wimbledon history, lasting 6 hours and 9 minutes.

Daniel parted ways with long-time doubles partner Mark Knowles after the 2007 U.S. Open, then started a partnership with Nenad Zimonjić.He won a doubles title with Zimonjić at the 2007 St. Petersburg Open. Nestor and Zimonjić advanced to the 2007 Paris Masters final as the second seeds, but lost 6–3, 7–6 (4) to #1 Doubles team Bob and Mike Bryan.

Knowles partnered Nestor once again, and won the 2007 Tennis Masters Cup. It was a fitting end for one of the most Successful Doubles teams to ever play the game. They defeated Simon Aspelin and Julian Knowle 6–3, 6–2 to take their first Tennis Masters Cup title.This team doesn't plan to play with each other again. Nestor opted to be with Zimonjic instead because he wanted a partner with a big serve considering that shorter rallies would be more suitable for his aging. It was reported in the New York Times that "on the tour, it’s known that they (Nestor and Zimonjic) joined up, after years in the Top 5 with other partners, specifically to usurp the Bryans."

In 2008, Nestor and Zimonjić won the Hamburg Masters and Queen's Club Championships. They reached the final of the French Open, Indian Wells Masters and Rome Masters. He captured the 2008 Wimbledon title for the first time, winning 7–6, 6–7, 6–3, 6–3 over Jonas Björkman and Kevin Ullyett. Thus he managed to win a career Golden Slam. In 2009 they won the Wimbledon title again and won nine titles, losing in the last tournament of the year twice, giving the Bryans no.1 An Australian Open Runner Up with Zimonjic, they bumped back up to No.1, making up for an embarrassing past two years at the tournament.

At the 2009 US Open, Nestor was fined US$5,000 for unsportsmanlike conduct towards some fans who were rooting for his quarterfinal opponents by cheering at Nestor's team unforced errors.

Personal

His Serbian parents moved to Canada short of his 4th birthday in 1976 and settled in Toronto where he attended Northview Heights Secondary School due to a special sports program known as APGA ( Academic program for gifted athletes). In July 2005 Nestor married Natasha Gavrilovic, his girlfriend of two years. They welcomed their first daughter, Tiana Alexis, on December 15, 2008, only two weeks after his doubles partner Zimonjić and his wife had twins.The couple now resides in the Bahamas.

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Serena Jameka Williams (born September 26, 1981) is an American professional tennis player and the current World Number 1 ranked female player. She has been ranked World Number 1 by the Women's Tennis Association (WTA) on five separate occasions. She regained this ranking for the fifth time in her career on the 2 November 2009. She is the reigning champion in both singles and women's doubles at the Australian Open and Wimbledon and in doubles at the US Open. In total, she has won 25 Grand Slam titles: 12 in singles, eleven in women's doubles and two in mixed doubles. In addition, she has won two Olympic gold medals in women's doubles.She also has won more Grand Slam titles than any other active female player and has won more career prize money than any other female athlete in history.

Williams reached the top ten on the WTA world rankings for the first time in 1999 when she won several tournaments, including her first Grand Slam victory at the US Open at the age of 17. Between 2002 and 2003, Williams won five of the six Grand Slam events she entered, becoming the fifth woman in history to hold all four Grand Slam titles simultaneously. She became the World Number 1 for the first time in July 2002.

Williams' domination of the sport came to an abrupt end in mid-2003 when she had surgery to repair a partial tear in a knee tendon.Upon her return to the sport in 2004, her results were noticeably less consistent than previously. In early 2005, she won her first Grand Slam title in 18 months at the Australian Open, but a string of injuries then limited her to competing in just 13 events in the two years that followed, winning none of them. Her standing in the world rankings suffered as a result, the nadir being World Number 140 in July 2006, leading to widespread speculation that she had passed her peak.Williams, however, eventually won another Grand Slam title at the Australian Open in 2007, despite being ranked World Number 81 at the time. Williams returned to the top ten later that year and has since competed in every Grand Slam event. She became the World Number 1 for the first time in five years in September 2008. She was named female athlete of 2009 by the Associated Press.

Williams is the younger sister of fellow former World Number 1 professional female tennis player Venus Williams. They have played each other in 23 professional matches dating back to 1998, with Serena winning 13 of these matches as of October 2009. Their meeting in the final of the 2001 US Open was the first Grand Slam final contested by two sisters in the open era. As of July 2009, they have met in eight Grand Slam finals, with Serena winning six of those. Between the 2002 French Open and the 2003 Australian Open, they met in all four Grand Slam finals, the first time in the Open era that the same two players had contested four consecutive Grand Slam finals. The pair regularly team to play doubles and have won 11 Grand Slam titles together.

Williams won her fifth Australian Open title at the 2010 Australian Open, an Open era record, and in doing so won her 12th career Grand Slam singles title, tying her with Billie Jean King and Suzanne Lenglen for sixth on the all-time list.

Early life

Williams was born in Saginaw, Michigan to Richard Williams and Oracene Price. She is of African American heritage and is one of five sisters: Lyndrea, Yetunde (died September 14, 2003), Isha, and Venus.Her mother raised Williams and her other daughters as members of the Jehovah's Witnesses religious group. When the children were young, the family moved to the Los Angeles suburb of Compton, where Williams started playing tennis at the age of four.Her father home-schooled Williams and her sister Venus.To this end, Williams was and remains coached by both her parents.

Williams' family moved from Compton to West Palm Beach when she was nine so that she could attend the tennis academy of Rick Macci, who would provide additional coaching. Macci spotted the exceptional talents of the sisters. He did not always agree with Williams' father but respected that "he treated his daughters like kids, allowed them to be little girls".Richard stopped sending his daughters to national junior tennis tournaments when Williams was 10, since he wanted them to take it slow and focus on school work. Another motivation was racial, as he had allegedly heard parents of white players talk about the Williams sisters in a derogatory manner during tournaments.At that time, Williams had a 46–3 record on the United States Tennis Association junior tour and was ranked No. 1 among under 10 players in Florida.In 1995, Richard pulled his daughters out of Macci's academy, and from then on took over all coaching at their home. When asked in 2000 whether having followed the normal path of playing regularly on the junior circuit would have been beneficial, Williams responded: "Everyone does different things. I think for Venus and I, we just tried a different road, and it worked for us."

Roger Federer

Roger Federer (born 8 August 1981) is a Swiss professional tennis player. As of January 25, 2010, he is ranked world number 1 by the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP), having previously held the number one position for a record 237 consecutive weeks. Many sports analysts, tennis critics, former and current players consider Federer to be the greatest tennis player of all time.

Federer has won 16 Grand Slam singles titles, more than any other male player. He is one of six male players to have captured the career Grand Slam, one of only three (with Laver and Agassi) since the beginning of the Open Era and one of only two male players (the other being Agassi) in history to have won all four Grand Slam titles on three different surfaces (clay, grass and hard courts). Federer has appeared in an unprecedented 22 career Grand Slam finals, and as of January 2010, has reached the semi-finals or better of the last 23 Grand Slam tournaments, a record streak that spans over six years.Federer also holds the record of reaching 10 consecutive Grand Slam finals and has appeared in 18 of the last 19. Federer has won 4 ATP World Tour Finals and 16 ATP Masters Series tournaments, one fewer than all time winner Andre Agassi. He also won the Olympic Gold Medal in doubles with his compatriot Stanislas Wawrinka at the 2008 Summer Olympic Games. As a result of his successes in tennis, Federer was named the Laureus World Sportsman of the Year for four consecutive years (2005–2008).

Childhood and personal life

Federer was born in Binningen, near Basel, to Swiss national Robert Federer and South Africa-born Lynette Du Rand.He holds both Swiss and South African citizenship.He grew up in suburban Münchenstein, near Basel, close to the French-German borders and Federer speaks Swiss German, German, French and English fluently.He was raised as a Catholic and met Pope Benedict XVI while playing the 2006 Internazionali BNL d'Italia tournament in Rome.Like all male Swiss citizens, Federer was subject to compulsory military service in the Swiss Armed Forces. However, in 2003 he was deemed unfit due to a long-standing back problem and was subsequently not required to fulfill his obligations.

Marriage and family

Federer is married to former Women's Tennis Association player Mirka Vavrinec. They met while competing for Switzerland in the 2000 Sydney Olympics. Vavrinec retired from the tour in 2002 because of a foot injury and has since been working as Federer's public relations manager.They were married in Basel on 11 April 2009, surrounded by a small group of close friends and family at Wenkenhof Villa (municipality of Riehen).On 24 July, Federer announced on his Facebook page that Mirka had given birth to twin girls, Myla Rose and Charlene Riva, on the previous day.