Nathalie Tauziat
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Country |  France |
|
| Residence | Bayonne | |
| Date of birth | 17 October 1967 | |
| Place of birth | Bangui, Central African Republic | |
| Height | 1.65 m (5 ft 4 in) | |
| Weight | 54.5 kg (120 lb) | |
| Turned Pro | 1985 | |
| Plays | Right-handed | |
| Career Prize Money | $6,650,093 | |
| Singles | ||
| Career record: | 606-365 | |
| Career titles: | 8 | |
| Highest ranking: | No. 3 (May 2000) | |
| Grand Slam results | ||
| Australian Open | 4r | |
| French Open | QF | |
| Wimbledon | F | |
| U.S. Open | QF | |
| Doubles | ||
| Career record: | 525-326 | |
| Career titles: | 25 | |
| Highest ranking: | No. 3 (October 8, 2002) | |
|
Infobox last updated on: July 12, 2006. |
||
Nathalie Tauziat (born October 17, 1967 in Bangui, Central African Republic) is a former professional tennis player from France.
Contents |
[edit] Career
Tauziat turned professional in 1985 and lived in Saint-Tropez in the French Riviera during the early stages of her career and later moved to Bayonne in the southwest of France. She retired from the WTA Tour tennis circuit after the French Open in 2003, after having only played doubles in 2002 and 2003. Her highest WTA Tour singles and doubles rankings were both World No. 3. Tauziat was coached by Régis de Camaret throughout her professional career. She mostly practiced the serve and volley game during her career.
Tauziat won her first WTA Tour singles title in her home country in Bayonne in 1990. This was followed by tournament victories in Quebec City in 1993, Eastbourne in 1995 and Birmingham in 1997. In 1991, she reached the French Open singles quarter-final for the first and only time, becoming the first Frenchwoman to do so since Brigitte Simon reached the semi-final in 1978. She was one of the late bloomers in women's tennis, moving into the world's tennis elite at 30 years of age in 1997.
She reached her only Grand Slam singles final of her career after 43 previous appearances in a Grand Slam tournament; she was the runner-up at the Wimbledon Championships in 1998 when she was defeated by Jana Novotná 4-6, 6-7. Her appearance in this final was the first by a Frenchwoman since the legendary Suzanne Lenglen dominated the tournament in the 1920s. She finished the year by becoming the first Frenchwoman in history to make more than a million dollars in official prize money earnings - US$1,038,310
Tauziat broke into the top 10 singles rankings in 1998, becoming only the third Frenchwoman after Françoise Durr and Mary Pierce to do so. On Feb 7, 1999, she became one of three Frenchwomen to be ranked in the singles Top 10, the first time France had three women ranked in the Top 10 simultaneously (Mary Pierce at No. 5, Tauziat at No. 6, Sandrine Testud at No. 9). France was the third nation after the USA and Australia to have more than two representatives in the singles Top 10 at any one time. This occurred again between November 15, 1999 and January 9, 2000 when Tauziat, Julie Halard-Decugis, Amélie Mauresmo and Mary Pierce were all ranked among the singles Top 10 simultaneously.
Tauziat became the third-oldest player to win a Tier 1 WTA Tour event since 1981 when she won the tournament in Moscow in 1999. This was followed by the singles title in the Tier II tournament in Leipzig; it marked the first and only time she had won more than one WTA Tour singles title in the same year. She reached the season-ending WTA Tour Championships semi-final for the second time in 1999 (the first was in 1997). She attained a career-high WTA Tour single ranking of World No. 3 at age 32 years and 6 months in the spring of 2000, making her the oldest woman to reach the top 3 and the fourth-oldest to be ranked in the top 4.
In the same year, she reached her first and only US Open singles quarter-final. In 2001, she competed in her 18th French Open, an all-time record at the tournament that was matched in 2005 by Conchita Martínez. In the same year, she picked up the eighth and final singles title of her career, and her third on grass, at Birmingham to re-enter the Top 10 and become the oldest winner of a singles title since 1994 at 33 years, 8 months. Two weeks later, she reached the Wimbledon singles quarter-final for the fifth time, becoming the oldest female Grand Slam tournament quarterfinalist since Martina Navratilova in 1994.
Tauziat finished 2001 with her 112th grass-court match win, making her fifth on the Open Era list (behind Martina Navratilova -309, Chris Evert-207, Pam Shriver-188 and Helena Suková-125). In the summer of 2001, she won her 600th career singles match en route to a fourth round finish at the US Open, only the 11th player to reach that milestone in the Open Era. In October 2001, she became at 34 years, 12 days the fourth-oldest player to qualify in singles for the season-ending Tour Championships (the ninth time she had done so) and also qualified in doubles for the seventh time. She attained a career-high number 3 doubles ranking on Oct 8, 2001.
Remarkably, she was seeded in singles at every tour event she played in the last four years of her career.
Tauziat has won a total of 8 WTA Tour singles and 25 WTA Tour doubles titles, 8 of them with fellow Frenchwoman Alexandra Fusai. She has secured WTA Tour doubles tournament victories at least once on four different surfaces - clay, grass, hardcourt and indoor. She was the runner-up in WTA Tour singles and doubles tournaments on 14 and 32 occasions (11 of them with Fusai) respectively.
Tauziat represented her country in the Fed Cup (formerly Federation Cup) from 1985 to 2001 and the Olympic Games in 1988, 1992 and 1996. As of year-end 2005, she holds the following Fed Cup records for her country: Most Years Played (16), Most Ties Played (40), Most Total Wins (33), Most Doubles Wins (20). She was a member of the French Fed Cup-winning team in 1997, in which she won both of her singles matches in the opening round against Japan, the doubles matches against Belgium in the next round and against the Netherlands in the final with Alexandra Fusai. She made Fed Cup history in her 1997 singles win over Japan when she defeated Naoko Sawamatsu 7-5, 4-6, 17-15. The final set was the longest set ever in Fed Cup singles and the 54 games in the match tied the record for the most games in a rubber.
In addition to her 57 career WTA Tour finals, Tauziat reached the women's doubles quarter-finals or better in 15 Grand Slam tournaments. Her best doubles performance in a Grand Slam tournament was at the 2001 US Open, where she was the runner-up with Kimberly Po-Messerli. She also played in the season-ending Tour Championships on seven occasions between 1988 and 2001; she was the runner-up with Alexandra Fusai in 1997 and 1998. She was a WTA Tour doubles semi-finalist on 42 occasions, excluding Grand Slams: 1985(3), 1986(1), 1987(2), 1988(3), 1989(5), 1990(1), 1991(1), 1993(2), 1994(2), 1995(3), 1996(1), 1997(2), 1998(4), 1999(4), 2000(3), 2001(5)
Tauziat has written a book with the title "Les Dessous du tennis féminin" (published in 2001 in French) in which she gave her insights into life in the women's professional tennis circuit.
In 2004, Tauziat received a state honour - le chevalier de la Légion d'honneur - from French President Jacques Chirac for her contributions to international tennis.
Tauziat has been an official WTA Tour mentor to French tennis player, Marion Bartoli, since 2003.
Tauziat is a first cousin of Didier Deschamps, a former French football player. She married Ramuncho Palaurena on July 16, 2005. The couple have a daughter, born in 2005.
[edit] Grand Slam singles finals
[edit] Runner-ups (1)
| Year | Championship | Opponent in Final | Score in Final |
| 1998 | Wimbledon |  Jana Novotná |
4-6, 6-7 |
[edit] WTA Tour singles finals
- 1988: RU - Nice, Mahwah
- 1990: W - Bayonne; RU - Wichita
- 1991: RU - Zürich
- 1992: RU - San Antonio, Bayonne
- 1993: W - Quebec City
- 1995: W - Eastbourne
- 1996: RU - Birmingham
- 1997: W - Birmingham; RU - Zürich, Chicago
- 1998: RU - Wimbledon, Leipzig
- 1999: W – Moscow, Leipzig; RU – Birmingham, Eastbourne
- 2000: W – Paris Indoor Open
- 2001: W – Birmingham; RU – Dubai
[edit] WTA Tour doubles finals
- 1987: W - Paris Open, Zürich with Isabelle Demongeot(Fra)
- 1988: W - West Berlin, Zürich with Demongeot; RU - Nice, Brighton with Demongeot
- 1989: W - Hamburg with Demongeot; RU -Zürich with Judith Wiesner(Aut)
- 1990: W - Brighton with Helena Suková(Cze); RU - Chicago with Arantxa Sánchez Vicario(Spn)
- 1991: W - Bayonne with Patricia Tarabini(Arg); RU - Barcelona(Spain) with Wiesner, Carlsbad with Gigi Fernandez(US)
- 1992: RU - Barcelona with Wiesner
- 1993: W – Melbourne with Nicole Provis(Aus); RU - Quebec City with Katerina Maleeva(Bul)
- 1994: W - Los Angeles with Julie Halard(Fra), Quebec City(Canada) with Elna Reinach(SA); RU - Barcelona(Spain) with Halard
- 1995: W - Linz with Meredith McGrath(US)
- 1996: W - Leipzig, Luxembourg with Kristie Boogert(Hol); RU - Paris Indoors, Indian Wells with Halard-Decugis, Birmingham(England) with Lori McNeil(US), Oakland with Irina Spirlea(Rom)
- 1997: W - Linz, Chicago with Alexandra Fusai(Fra); RU - Indian Wells with Lisa Raymond(US), Birmingham with Linda Wild(US), Tour Championships, Atlanta, Quebec City with Fusai
- 1998: W - Linz, Strasbourg, New Haven with Fusai; RU - Tour Championships, Indian Wells, Berlin, Carlsbad with Fusai
- 1999: W – Prostějov(Czech Republic), Berlin with Fusai; RU – Hanover, Rome, Strasbourg with Fusai, Zürich with Natasha Zvereva(Blr)
- 2000: W – Eastbourne with Ai Sugiyama(Jpn), Montreal with Martina Hingis(Swi), Luxembourg with Fusai; RU – Pan-Pacific Open(Tokyo) with Fusai, Linz with Sugiyama
- 2001: W – Miami with Arantxa Sánchez Vicario(Spn), Los Angeles with Kimberly Po-Messerli(US), Leipzig with Elena Likhovtseva(Rus); RU – Paris Indoor Open, Nice, Birmingham with Po-Messerli(US), US Open with Po-Messerli
- 2002: RU – Birmingham with Po-Messerli
[edit] WTA Tour Championships
- 1988: Doubles – 1rd with Isabelle Demongeot(Fra)
- 1990, 1991, 1992 and 1993: Singles - 1rd
- 1994: Doubles – 1rd with Julie Halard(Fra)
- 1995: Doubles - lost playoff match with Julie Halard-Decugis(Fra) for the final (8th) berth
- 1997: Singles - SF, Doubles - RU with Alexandra Fusai(Fra)
- 1998: Singles - QF, Doubles - RU with Fusai
- 1999: Singles – SF, Doubles – QF with Fusai
- 2000: Singles – QF, Doubles – QF with Fusai
- 2001: Singles – 1rd, Doubles – SF with Kimberly Po-Messerli(US)
[edit] Grand Slam singles record
- Australia Open - 4-3
- French Open - 30-18
- Wimbledon - 40-16
- US Open - 27-16
- Overall - 101-53
[edit] Grand Slam women's doubles record(QF or better)
- French Open - SF('90,'94,'97, ’99, ‘00), QF('87,'92,'93,'95,'98,‘01)
- Wimbledon – SF(’01), QF(’02)
- US Open – RU(’01), QF('95, '97)
[edit] External links
- WTA Tour profile for Nathalie Tauziat
