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Paola Suárez (born June 23, 1976 in Munro, 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 Semifinnals 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 the Spain spanish Virginia Ruano-Pascual in 32 of her 39 titles. They won several tournaments, including Roland Garros in 4 occations, the US Open in trhee, the Australian Open in 2004, and many others. With Virgina, they have been the #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, 2 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".
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Grand Slam Doubles
Titles (8)
- 2001 French Open
- 2002 French Open
- 2002 U.S. Open
- 2003 U.S. Open
- 2004 Australian Open
- 2004 French Open
- 2004 U.S. Open
- 2005 French Open
Finals (4)
- 2002 Wimbledon
- 2003 Australian Open
- 2003 French Open
- 2003 Wimbledon
Performance Timeline Doubles
Note: if not otherwise noted, tournament played with Ruano Pascual
| Tournament | 2005 | 2004 | 2003 | 2002 | 2001 | 2000 | 1999 | 1998 | 1997 | 1996 | Career |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Australian Open | - | W | F | 3r | QF | 2r | 2r | 2r | QF | - | 1 |
| French Open | W | W | F | W | W | F | 2r | 2r | 1r1 | 1r1 | 4 |
| Wimbledon | SF | F | F | SF | QF | 3r | 2r | 1r | 1r1 | 0 | |
| US Open | W | W | W | 3r | 1r | 2r | SF | 2r | 1r2 | 3 | |
| WTA Tour Championships | SF | W | QF | SF | QF | - | - | - | - | 1 |
- with Laura Montalvo
- with Maja Muric
External links
- Paola Suárez File (http://www.wtatour.com/players/playerprofiles/PlayerBio2.asp?PlayerID=190360) WTA
- Ole 2005, on her retirement (http://www.ole.clarin.com/jsp/v3/pagina.jsp?pagId=982933)
- Paola and Virginia (http://www.geocities.com/viviruano/)