Saori Obata

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**Saori Obata**

Nickname(s)	Saochin
Country	Japan
Residence	Tokyo, Japan
Date of birth	April 23, 1978 (1978-04-23) (age 30)
Place of birth	Sapporo, Japan
Height	1.65 m (5 ft 5 in)
Weight	60 kg (130 lb)
Turned pro	April, 1996
Retired	June, 2006
Plays	Left handed-handed (two-handed backhand)
Career prize money	$652,031
Singles
Career record:	281-222
Career titles:	0 WTA, 5 ITF
Highest ranking:	No. 39 (February 9, 2004)
Grand Slam results
Australian Open	3r (2004)
French Open	1r (2002,2003,2004)
Wimbledon	2r (2002, 2004)
US Open	3r (2003)
Doubles
Career record:	118-102
Career titles:	1 WTA, 2 ITF
Highest ranking:	No. 98 (February 9, 2004)
Infobox last updated on: June 10, 2007.

Saori Obata (born April 23 1978 in Sapporo, Japan) is a female former Japanese tennis player. She turned professional in April 1996, and in February 9th 2004, she achieved her career-high singles ranking of 39, and on the same day she reached her career-high doubles ranking of 98.

She did not win a WTA singles title in her career, however did reach 1 singles final in Tashkent, Uzbekistan in 2003 where she lost 6–2, 7–6(2) to the Spanish player Virginia Ruano-Pascual. In the same year she reached the semi-final of the WTA event in Bali, Indonesia before losing to Chanda Rubin. She achieved a notable scalp in the opening round of the Eastbourne grass event in 2003, when she defeated Jelena Dokić 6–3 6–1 when Dokić was ranked 11 in the world. She also defeated Ai Sugiyama in the second round of the Australian Open in 2004 when ranked number 55, this was her only win over a top 10 player as Sugiyama was ranked number 9 at the time.

She has won a doubles title at WTA level (Memphis 2003, with Akiko Morigami), and has five ITF level singles titles. She retired from professional tennis in early 2006 because of injury. Her final Grand Slam appearance was at the 2006 Australian Open where she lost in the opening round, having qualified, to Daniela Hantuchová in three sets.

[edit] Singles (5)

Legend (Singles)
Grand Slam (0)
Tour Championships (0)
Tier I Event (0)
Tier II Event (0)
Tier III Event (0)
Tier IV Event (0)
ITF Circuit (5)

No.	Date	Tournament	Surface	Opponent in the final	Score
1.	November 18, 2001	Port Pirie, Australia	Hard	Pavlina Nola	6–1, 6–2
2.	November 25, 2001	Nuriootpa, Australia	Hard	Yoon-Jeong Cho	6–4, 6–1
3.	May 11, 2003	Fukuoka, Japan	Clay	Maria Elena Camerin	2–6, 6–3, 6–3
4.	April 3, 2005	Augusta, United States	Hard	Viktoria Azarenka	6–2, 6–2
5.	May 8, 2005	Gifu, Japan	Hard	Shiho Hisamatsu	6–1, 2–6, 6–4