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Paola Suárez
Paola Suárez (born June 23, 1976 in Pergamino, Buenos
Aires, Argentina) is a top 10 tennis player, as of the early 2000s. She gained
prominence in 2004 by reaching the finals of nine straight WTA double tournaments,
and by reaching the singles semi-finals of the French Open tournament, held
in Paris.
"La Negra" Suárez began playing professional
tennis at the age of fifteen, in 1991. In 1994, she joined the professional
tour as a singles player. It wasn't until the 2000s, however, that she became
an international figure in her sport, by reaching the semis of the aforementioned
French Open, a prestigious grand slam tournament.
Suárez won four WTA titles (2004 Canberra, 2003 Vienna,
1998 & 2001 Bogota) and 12 other minor tournaments. In 2004, Paola hoped
to abtain the French Open title that would become her first grand slam championship,
but lost in the semi-finals against Elena Dementieva. That year, she was
ranked number nine in the world among women tennis players by the WTA, which
has been her highest ranking as a singles player thus far.
But it was in doubles where she had the best results, playing
with Virginia Ruano-Pascual of Spain in 32 of her 39 titles. They won several
tournaments, including the French Open on four occasions, the US Open three
times, the Australian Open in 2004, and many others. With Virginia, they
have been the No. 1 female couple since September 9, 2002 (WTA Tour Doubles
Team of the Year 2002, 2003, 2004). They also reached nine straight Grand
Slam finals, two short of Navratilova-Shriver's 11 straight Slam finals.
Suárez has earned $4,837,968 dollars in her career,
with four single WTA titles, and 8 double grand slams.
In 2005 she announced her retirement for 2006 for personal
reasons, and that until then she will only play a few tournaments. On this
she commented: "[...]if you want to be a tennis player you have to do
it full time. I did it for 11 years, I lived only for tennis and I don't
regret it. But that's it. Play to suffer is not worthy". In June of
2005 he went on labrum hip clinical intervention, with a recovering time
of 3 to 4 months. She restarted playing in Sydney in January 2006 with Ruano
Pascual, reaching the final.
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