Career
As a junior, Zvereva won the Wimbledon girls singles title in 1986, defeating Leila Meskhi in the final 2–6, 6–2, 9–7. Zvereva also won the US Open girls singles championship in 1987, beating Sandra Birch in the final 6–0, 6–3.
After turning pro, Zvereva won four WTA Tour singles titles and 80 WTA Tour doubles titles. Eighteen of them were Grand Slam doubles titles: five at Wimbledon, four at the US Open, five at the French Open, and four at the Australian Open. She won those Grand Slam doubles titles with four different partners: Gigi Fernández, Martina Hingis, Pam Shriver, and Larisa Savchenko Neiland.
In addition to her Grand Slam doubles titles, Zvereva teamed with Meskhi to win a bronze medal at the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona, Spain.
Zvereva's best achievement in singles was in 1988 when, at age of 17, she beat second ranked Navratilova in the fourth round and sixth seeded Helena Suková in the quarterfinals en route to the final of the French Open. In the semifinals, Zvereva saved two match points against Nicole Bradtke before winning 6–3, 6–7, 7–5. In the final, she lost to Steffi Graf 6–0, 6–0 in only 32 minutes (the shortest Grand Slam final ever), who went on to win all four Grand Slam singles titles and an Olympic gold medal that year. Zvereva is one of the few players to have beaten both Graf and Monica Seles in the same Grand Slam singles tournament. At Wimbledon in 1998, Zvereva defeated the fourth seeded Graf in the third round 6–4, 7–5 and the sixth seeded Seles in a quarterfinal 7–6(4), 6–2. Starting with the French Open in 1987 and extending through Wimbledon in 2000, Zvereva played in 51 of the 54 Grand Slam singles tournaments held during that period.
In addition to her Grand Slam women's doubles titles, Zvereva twice won the mixed doubles title at the Australian Open. She partnered with Jim Pugh to win the title in 1990 and with Rick Leach in 1995.
Zvereva retired from professional tennis in 2003. Her last appearance in a Grand Slam Tournament was in Wimbledon 2002, where she lost on the first round to Marlene Weingartner 4–6, 6–3, 6–2. She played in the invitational doubles event in 2007.
Read more about this topic: Natasha Zvereva
Famous quotes containing the word career:
“He was at a starting point which makes many a man’s career a fine subject for betting, if there were any gentlemen given to that amusement who could appreciate the complicated probabilities of an arduous purpose, with all the possible thwartings and furtherings of circumstance, all the niceties of inward balance, by which a man swings and makes his point or else is carried headlong.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)
““Never hug and kiss your children! Mother love may make your children’s infancy unhappy and prevent them from pursuing a career or getting married!” That’s total hogwash, of course. But it shows on extreme example of what state-of-the-art “scientific” parenting was supposed to be in early twentieth-century America. After all, that was the heyday of efficiency experts, time-and-motion studies, and the like.”
—Lawrence Kutner (20th century)
“I’ve been in the twilight of my career longer than most people have had their career.”
—Martina Navratilova (b. 1956)