Mirjana Lučić

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Mirjana Lučić

Lučić at the 2010 US Open
Country	Croatia
Residence	Tampa, Florida, United States[1]
Born	(1982-03-09) March 9, 1982 (age 30) Dortmund, West Germany[1]
Height	1.81 m (5 ft 11 in)
Weight	65 kg (140 lb)
Turned pro	April 26, 1997[1]
Retired	Active
Plays	Right-handed (two-handed backhand)[1]
Career prize money	$1,143,377
Singles
Career record	249–186
Career titles	2 WTA and 3 ITF
Highest ranking	No. 32 (May 11, 1998)
Current ranking	No. 120 (January 30, 2012)
Grand Slam Singles results
Australian Open	2R (1998)
French Open	3R (2001)
Wimbledon	SF (1999)
US Open	3R (1997–98)
Other tournaments
Doubles
Career record	34–33
Career titles	2 WTA and 1 ITF
Highest ranking	No. 19 (October 26, 1998)
Grand Slam Doubles results
Australian Open	W (1998)
French Open	2R (2011)
Wimbledon	Not played
US Open	1R (1998–99)
Last updated on: January 30, 2012.

Mirjana Lučić (born March 9, 1982, in Dortmund, West Germany) is a Croatian professional tennis player.^[1] She enjoyed a promising career on the WTA Tour in the late 1990s, during which she set several "youngest-ever" records, won one Grand Slam women's doubles title at the Australian Open in 1998 when she was only 15 years old, partnering Martina Hingis, and reached the semifinals of Wimbledon in 1999. Following a series of personal problems from 2000 onwards, she faded from the scene. After toiling through the challenger circuit through much of the next decade, Lučić reemerged as a top 100 player following the 2010 season. Married Daniele Baroni on November 15, 2011 to become Mirjana Lučić Baroni ^[2]

Career

Lučić began playing tennis at age four by hiding in the car when her older sister went to tennis classes and then sneaking into the lessons herself. As a junior player, she won the girls' singles title at the US Open in 1996, and the girls' singles and doubles crowns at the Australian Open in 1997, becoming only the third player in the Open Era to win two junior Grand Slam singles titles by the age of 14 (the others being Martina Hingis and Jennifer Capriati).

Lučić turned professional in April 1997 at the age of 15. One week after turning pro, she won the very first WTA Tour event she played in at Bol. She then reached the final of her second career event in Strasbourg, where she lost to Steffi Graf.

In 1998, playing in her very first tour doubles event, Lučić became the youngest player in history to win a title at the Australian Open at age 15 years, 10 months and 21 days, when she and Hingis won the women's doubles title. The win made Lučić the first player to win both the very first singles and doubles events they had ever played in on the WTA Tour. And she went on to win the second doubles event of her career when she partnered Hingis to win the Pan Pacific Open in Tokyo. Later that year, Lučić defended her singles title at Bol, becoming the youngest player ever to defend a tour title at age 16 years, 1 month and 24 days. She also finished runner-up in the 1998 mixed doubles event at Wimbledon, partnering Mahesh Bhupathi.

In 1999, Lučić achieved her career-best Grand Slam singles performance when she reached the semi-finals at Wimbledon, before losing in three sets to Graf 6–7, 6–4, 6–3. In the 3rd round, she stunned World No. 4 and 9 time Grand Slam champion, Monica Seles 7–6, 7–6. She also beat 1998 Wimbledon finalist Nathalie Tauziat in the quarter finals after Tauziat served for the match twice in the third set.

After 1999, Lučić's suffered a series of personal and financial problems and she failed to make any further significant impact on the tour. She then proceeded to take an extended hiatus from competition; her career-high world rankings were World No. 32 in singles and World No. 19 in doubles (both achieved in 1998). Since then, she has returned to the WTA tour and won her first qualifying match in the 2007 Region championships. Her last appearance on the tour before that was in 2003.

Mirjana Lučić gave an interview in New York Daily News in April 2006 explaining why she stopped playing and describing her life with an abusive father, vowing that would not stop her and she will continue to fight to the end. She had been training with a new coach, Ivan Beros, and said she was fit and ready to continue tennis.

As a "wild card" in the qualifying draw of the Cellular South Cup in Memphis in February, Lučić won one match (def. Melanie Oudin, 1–6 6–3 6–3) before losing in the second round (to Natalie Grandin, 6–4 3–6 6–2). She was also awarded a wild card to the 2007 Pacific Life Open in Indian Wells (CA) in March, where she again won her first match [def. Lindsey Nelson, 6–4 7–6] before losing in the second round (to Anna Chakvetadze, 6–2 7–5).^[3]

She also received a wild card to the Tiro A Volo tournament in Rome, where she lost in the first round (to Karin Knapp, 6–4 6–3). That being her third tournament within the previous 12 months, she received her first WTA ranking since her return to the professional tour. She re-entered the rankings at 524.

Even though she lost the first round to Knapp in the Rome challenger, she received a wild card for the 1.3 million dollar tournament in Rome and beat the 65th-ranked player in the world, Elena Vesnina. She then went on to lose to Catalina Castaño in the 2nd round. Her ranking jumped to 444 with the result.

In September 2008 Mirjana started working with her new Coach Alberto Gutierrez, planning a comeback. In the 2009 season, she was given a wildcard into the ASB Classic in Auckland, New Zealand. In her first WTA main draw match since Indian Wells 2007, she lost to Anne Keothavong in the first round 6–4 6–2.

Lučić continued to toil on the ITF challenger circuit for several years prior to mounting somewhat of a comeback in the 2010 season. During that year, Lučić won her first title in 12 years at a $25K ITF event in Jackson, Florida April 11. Shortly after, Lučić qualified for the WTA event in Birmingham, going on to win her first main draw match since Indian Wells 2007, this time over Colombian Mariana Duque Mariño, 6–1 6–2. She continued her good form as she defeated fellow Croatian player Karolina Šprem 6–3 5–7 7–6 in the second round. She was beaten by top 20 player Aravane Rezaï of France in the third round by a score of 7–5 6–3. Lučić then competed in the Wimbledon Qualifying tournament at Roehampton. She won her first two rounds and beat Michaëlla Krajicek in the third round to qualify for the main draw of Wimbledon, her first Grand Slam since the 2002 US Open. After a good showing, Lučić fell to 14th seed Victoria Azarenka in the first round 3–6, 3–6 on Centre Court.

After Wimbledon Lučić moved onto the European summer clay court events. She failed to qualify for Bastad but the following week came through three rounds of qualifying at the 2010 Palermo event, and won her first round match, defeating Pauline Parmentier 7–5, 0–6, 7–6 recovering from a 0–4 third set deficit and saving 3 match points. She then fell to third seed Sara Errani in the second round recovering a 2–4 deficit to force a tie-break before falling 0–6, 6–7. Her ranking rose to 151, the highest of her comeback so far.

Following Palermo Lučić returned to the US for the summer hard court season. Her first event is the $700,000 Premier event in Stanford, the Bank of the West Classic. Seeded fifth in the qualifying draw Lučić defeated both Heidi El Tabakh and Tamaryn Hendler in straight sets before repeating her Wimbledon victory over Michaëlla Krajicek with a 6–1, 7–6 win to qualify for the main draw where she will face Russian Maria Kirilenko.

In the 2010 US Open, after winning three qualifying matches to enter the main draw, she beat Alicia Molik 7–6, 6–1 to set up a second round clash with seed # 4 Jelena Janković. Lucić lost in three sets 4–6, 6–3, 2–6. Even with this defeat, this was her best performance in a Grand Slam in nearly a decade.

Lučić started out the 2011 season poorly with a string of early losses on both the WTA and ITF circuits early in the year. Her fortunes began to change during the clay court season where Lucic reached her first WTA Tour quarterfinal in over 10 years at the Strasbourg event, losing to Anabel Medina Garrigues.

Titles

Singles (5)

Outcome	No.	Date	Tournament	Surface	Opponent	Score
Winner	1.	May 4, 1997	Bol	Clay	Corina Morariu	7–5, 6–7(4–7), 7–6(7–5)
Runner-up	1.	May 24, 1997	Strasbourg	Clay	Steffi Graf	6–2, 7–5
Winner	2.	May 3, 1998	Bol	Clay	Corina Morariu	6–4, 6–2

Doubles (3)

No.	Date	Tournament	Surface	Partner	Opponent	Score
1.	December 16, 1996	Salzburg	Carpet (I)	Chanda Rubin	Anca Barna Adriana Barna	6–3, 6–2
2.	February 1, 1998	Melbourne	Hard	Martina Hingis	Lindsay Davenport Natasha Zvereva	6–4, 2–6, 6–3
3.	February 8, 1998	Tokyo	Carpet (I)	Martina Hingis	Lindsay Davenport Natasha Zvereva	7–5, 6–4

Coach: Angel Diaz

Singles Performance timeline

Runner-ups (2)

Singles (1)

• 1997: Internationaux de Strasbourg (lost to Steffi Graf)

Doubles (1)

• 1998: Bol, Croatia (w/Joannette Kruger)

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Mirjana Lučić

• Mirjana Lučić at the Women's Tennis Association
• Mirjana Lučić at the Fed Cup
• Mirjana Lučić on Facebook