Anna Chakvetadze

Anna Chakvetadze

Country	Russia
Residence	Moscow, Russia
Date of birth	March 5 1987 (1987--) (age 20)
Place of birth	Moscow, Russia
Height	5' 7in (1.70 m)
Weight	128 lb. (58 kg)
Turned Pro	2003
Plays	Right-handed (two-handed backhand)
Career Prize Money	$2,084,182
Singles
Career record:	192-84
Career titles:	6 WTA, 1 ITF
Highest ranking:	No. 5 (September 10, 2007)
Grand Slam results
Australian Open	QF (2007)
French Open	QF (2007)
Wimbledon	3rd (2006 & 07)
U.S. Open	SF (2007)
Doubles
Career record:	24-38
Career titles:	0 WTA, 1 ITF
Highest ranking:	No. 53 (August 6, 2007)
Infobox last updated on: September 16, 2007.

Anna Djambulovna Chakvetadze (Russian: Анна Чакветадзе; born March 5, 1987, Moscow) is a Russian professional tennis player. On September 10, 2007, she reached her career-high pro singles ranking of #5 in the world.

She began playing tennis at the age of eight after being introduced to the sport by her mother, Natalia. She travels for tournaments with her father. She speaks both Russian and English.

Career

Chakvetadze debuted on the ITF circuit in 2001, competing in her first juniors tournament at Minsk, Belarus, losing in the first round. In 2002, she won her first ITF Juniors title at Istanbul, in her doubles debut with fellow Russian Irina Kotkina. In 2003, she made it to the finals of the Junior Championships at Wimbledon before falling to Kirsten Flipkens of Belgium 4-6 6-3 3-6. The same year, she won the International Bavarian Junior Challenge, defeating Marta Domachowska of Poland 7-6 6-5. Her record as a junior was 67-19 in singles, and 22-14 in doubles. Her highest world ranking as a junior was #22 achieved in December of 2003. Chakvetadze turned pro in 2003.

At the 2004 U.S. Open, in her first ever Grand Slam appearance, and third WTA tournament appearance, she defeated the #3-ranked player in the world at the time, Anastasia Myskina, 7-6(3) 6-3 and reached the third round as a qualifier. With this result, she became tied for the second fastest player to defeat a world top 10 in WTA history, tying Serena Williams. She broke into the top 100 in the WTA rankings on September 13, reaching #91. She reached the top 50 on June 6, 2004 coming in at #44.

On September 25 2006, Chakvetadze won her first WTA singles tournament in Guangzhou, China, defeating Spain's Anabel Medina Garrigues. She won her second WTA tournament almost immediately afterwards on October 15, stunning the tennis world by becoming an unseeded winner of the Kremlin Cup Tier I tournament in Moscow, beating Elena Dementieva and Nadia Petrova en route to the title ^[1]. The win would help boost her ranking to #16 in the world.

In 2007, Chakvetadze made an excellent start to the year, winning her third WTA tournament in Hobart, Australia, beating fellow Russian Vasilisa Bardina 6-3, 7-6(3) in the final ^[2]. She has currently achieved her greatest Grand Slam performance in the 2007 Australian Open (where she was seeded 12th), beating eight-seeded Patty Schnyder 6-4, 6-1 in the fourth round to reach the quarterfinals, where she faced top-seed Maria Sharapova. Despite a hard fight from Chakvetadze, Sharapova won the match 7-6 (5), 7-5.

In the beginning of February 2007, Chakvetadze continued her good form, reaching the quarterfinals at the 2007 Open Gaz de France in Paris, where she lost to Amelie Mauresmo 6⁵-7⁷, 5-7. She then competed at the 2007 Proximus Diamond Games in Antwerp, where she reached the semifinals, before losing to Mauresmo 3-6, 6-3, 2-6. Her good form saw her making her top 10 debut at the new WTA rankings, at #10, which was released on February 19, 2007. At her next tournament in Indian Wells, she made an impressive start before losing in the fourth round to Shahar Pe'er in straight sets, 4-6 6-7. Her most impressive performance this year came at Anna's next tournament in Miami, where she reached the semi-finals at the Tier I event, with wins over players such as Tatiana Golovin, Mara Santangelo and China's Li Na. She lost in the semi-finals in straight sets to then world number one, Justine Henin, 2-6 3-6. At the 2007 French Open, she made the quarterfinals, defeating Molik, Szavay, Sugiyama, and Safarova before losing to Sharapova again.

At Wimbledon 2007

She won her 2nd title of the year, and first grass title, in 's-Hertogenbosch, with notable wins over Daniela Hantuchova and Jelena Janković. At Wimbledon, however, her dreams fell apart in round 3 as she lost to 31st seed Michaella Krajicek in 3 sets, two of which were tiebreaks.

In Cincinnati, as the #1 seed and playing there for the first time, with no problems apart from her semifinal battle with Sania Mirza, she defeated Akiko Morigami in the final. The following week, in Stanford, the first tournament of the US Open Series, she again became the tournament champion, defeating Sania Mirza 6-3 6-2 in the final. That was her 9th consecutive victory (because of a bye in round 1 of Stanford). This victory gave her highest ranking to date, #6. In addition, she extended her finals streak to 6 matches, never losing a final.

In the Acura Classic tournament in San Diego, California, her 12 matches winning streak came to and end when she lost in the semis to top seed Sharapova for the third time this year with a score of 6-3,6-2, due, in part, to the exhaustion of her previous match, where she defeated reigning Wimbledon champion Venus Williams 6-7(5), 7-6(3), 6-2.

At the 2007 U.S. Open, Chakvetadze was the sixth seed and reached the semifinals of a Grand Slam tournament for the first time in her career. She defeated Tamira Paszek 6-1, 7-5 in the fourth round, and then defeated Shahar Pe'er 6-4, 6-1 in the quarterfinals. With a shocking defeat of second seeded Maria Sharapova knocked out so early in the third round, who also had defeated her in the past two Grand Slams that year (Australian & French), it cleared the way for her to reach her highest Slam appearance, but was defeated in the by Svetlana Kuznetsova 3-6, 6-1, 6-1, ruining her dreams of going on to the U.S. Open Final against Justine Henin.

Chakvetadze headed into the Kremlin Cup as the defending champion and with chances to finally assure her a place at the season-ending championships. However, she lost her second round match to Dinara Safina in straight sets 7-6, 6-2 after a first round bye.

WTA Tour titles (6)

Singles wins (6)

No.	Date	Tournament	Surface	Opponent in the final	Score
1.	September 25, 2006	Guangzhou	Hard	Anabel Medina Garrigues	6-3, 6-4
2.	October 15 2006	Moscow	Carpet	Nadia Petrova	6-4, 6-4
3.	January 12 2007	Hobart	Hard	Vasilisa Bardina	6-3, 7-6(3)
4.	June 17, 2007	's-Hertogenbosch	Grass	Jelena Janković	7-6(2), 3-6, 6-3
5.	July 22, 2007	Cincinnati	Hard	Akiko Morigami	6-1 6-3
6.	July 29, 2007	Stanford	Hard	Sania Mirza	6-3 6-2

Singles performance timeline

To prevent confusion and double counting, information in this table is updated only once a tournament or the player's participation in the tournament has concluded. This table is current through the U.S. Open, which ends on September 9, 2007.

• A = did not participate in the tournament

References

External links

• Official site
• Anna Chakvetadze profile on the WTA Tour's official website
• ITF pro profile
• ITF juniors profile

Women's Tennis Association | Top ten female tennis players as of October 15, 2007
1. Justine Henin 6. 1 Serena Williams 2. Svetlana Kuznetsova 7. 1 Anna Chakvetadze 3. Jelena Janković 8. Venus Williams 4. 1 Ana Ivanović 9. Daniela Hantuchová  5. 1 Maria Sharapova 10. 4 Elena Dementieva

Donate to Wikimedia