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Manuela Maleeva (born February 14, 1967) is Bulgaria’s all time
best female tennis player. She played in the WTA tour, competing in singles,
doubles and mixed doubles between 1982 and 1994.
Biography
Born in Sofia, Manuela was the oldest of the four children
of Yulia Berberyan and Georgi Maleev. The mother, who came from a prominent
Armenian family, which found refuge in Bulgaria after the 1896 Armenian massacres
in the Ottoman Empire, was the best Bulgarian tennis player in the 1960s.
After she retired from professional tennis in the 1970s, Berberyan started
on a coaching career. She was the coach of all of her three daughters, Manuela,
Katerina and Magdalena, each of whom eventually became WTA top ten players.
In 1982 Manuela won the junior French Open. Later the same
year she made her debut among the women and ended the year within the first
200 of the WTA rank list. In 1984 Manuela won a total of seven tournaments
beating all stars in the women’s tennis with the exception of Martina
Navratilova. After the victory at the tournament in Indianapolis the same
year, Manuela became 3 in the WTA rank list. Once in the top ten, she did
not leave it for a period of ten whole years – until 1992.
Also in 1984, Manuela won her first and only Grand Slam title
– in mixed doubles at the US Open together with Tom Gullikson from the
USA. In 1988 she won a bronze medal in the 1988 Summer Olympics's singles
in Seoul. In 1992 and 1993 she registered her all time best achievement in
Grand Slam singles reaching the semi-finals of the US Open (in 1992 after
beating her sister, Magdalena Maleeva, at the quarter-finals).
In 1994, Manuela retired from professional tennis. Throughout
her 12-year carrier, she won a total of 19 WTA Tour singles titles, four
in doubles and one in mixed doubles. She won the Hopman Cup in 1992 together
with Jakob Hlasek and reached twice the semi-finals at Fed Cup in 1985 and
1987.
Manuela has been married since 1987 to Switzerland’s
best tennis player from the 1980s, Francois Fragniere. They live near Geneva
and have three children, two girls and a boy.
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