Marko Baghdatis

Marko Baghdatis

Marcos Baghdatis (Greek: Μάρκος Παγδατής, IPA: [ˈmaɾkos paɣðaˈtis]) born June 17, 1985, Limassol is a Cypriot professional tennis player. He was the runner-up at the 2006 Australian Open and a semifinalist at the 2006 Wimbledon Championships and reached a career-high ATP ranking of World No. 8 on August 2006. As of July 2009, he is ranked No. 146 in the ATP rankings.

Mario Ancic

Mario Ancic by rachael-yeah

Mario Ančić (born March 30, 1984) is a professional tennis player from Croatia. He has won three singles titles and five doubles titles. His highest international ranking came during the 2006 ATP Tour, when he reached No. 7 in singles. Apart from his success on the ATP Tour, Mario helped Croatia to win the 2005 Davis Cup and at the Athens Olympic Games in 2004, he and Ivan Ljubičić won a bronze medal in doubles for Croatia.

As a teenager making his Grand Slam debut at the 2002 Wimbledon Championships, he defeated 7th-seeded Roger Federer. This win also made him the last player to defeat Federer at Wimbledon (until Rafael Nadal) and on grass courts; and during the years, he was known as the last man to beat Federer, until Nadal's victory over Federer in the 2008 Wimbledon Championships finals.

His best performance at Grand Slams came at the 2004 Wimbledon Championships, when he reached the semifinals. Due to his success at Wimbledon and grass courts, many saw in Mario a successor of Goran Ivanišević, the 2001 Wimbledon Champion and a former No. 2 in singles, earning a nickname New Goran and Baby Goran.

During 2007 and 2008, mononucleosis and minor injuries forced him to miss many major events, and his ranking dropped from No. 9 in January 2007 to No. 135 in January 2008. As of June 15, 2009, he is currently No. 37 in singles rankings. He has been coached by Fredrik Rosengren since August 2005.

Maria Sharapova

Maria Sharapova by Maria S Forever

Maria Sharapova by Maria S Forever

Maria Sharapova by Maria S Forever

Maria Sharapova by Maria S Forever

Maria Sharapova by Maria S Forever

Maria Yuryevna Sharapova (Russian: Maria_sharapova.ogg Мари́я Ю́рьевна Шара́пова​ (help·info), Mariya Yur’evna Shara'pova [pronounced Sha-RA-po-va]; born April 19, 1987) is a former World No. 1 Russian professional tennis player and three time Grand Slam singles champion. She is currently ranked World No. 49.

When Sharapova was seven, she and her father moved from their life of poverty in Russia to the United States, to enroll in the Nick Bollettieri Tennis Academy. After graduating rapidly through the junior and then professional ranks in the years that followed, Sharapova won her first Grand Slam title at Wimbledon in 2004 at the age of 17. In the two years that followed, Sharapova won eight titles on the WTA Tour and had two brief stints as the World No. 1, but was defeated in all five Grand Slam semifinals she competed in during this period. She eventually won her second Grand Slam title at the 2006 US Open.

Starting in 2007, Sharapova began to suffer from a right shoulder injury, which forced her to withdraw from numerous tournaments during the season. It was partly due to this that she dropped out of the top five on the WTA world rankings for the first time in three years in October 2007.

Although she won her third Grand Slam title at the Australian Open at the beginning of 2008 and returned to the World No. 1 position later in the year, her shoulder problems eventually resurfaced, with Sharapova ultimately undergoing surgery for the injury in October 2008. Sharapova did not return to the sport until May 2009, having been out for ten consecutive months, and as a consequence had dropped out of the top 100 on the rankings. Since returning, Sharapova's standing has recovered to World No. 49.

Sharapova's public profile extends beyond tennis. She has been featured in a number of modeling assignments, including a feature in Sports Illustrated. Sharapova was the most searched-for athlete on Yahoo! in both 2005 and 2008.

In July 2008, as a result of her success both on and off court, she was the world's highest-paid female athlete, earning $26 million. Sharapova is on track to repeat this feat again in 2009; despite playing few matches due to injury Sharapova made $22 million between June 2008 and June 2009. Since February 2007, she has been a United Nations Development Project Goodwill Ambassador, concerned specifically with efforts in Chernobyl to recover from the 1986 nuclear disaster.

Marat Safin

Marat Safin by wikipedia

Marat Safin by wikipedia

Marat Safin by wikipedia

Marat Safin by adifansnet

Marat Safin By Numbers

Marat Mikhailovich Safin (Tatar: Марат Мөбин улы Сафин, Marat Möbin ulı Safin; Russian: Мара́т Миха́йлович (Муби́нович) Са́фин /mɑ.ˈrɑt.ˈsɑ.fɪn/; born January 27, 1980, in Moscow) is a Russian former World No. 1 tennis player. He is the older brother of current world number one WTA player Dinara Safina.

Safin began his professional career in 1997, and held the No. 1 world ranking for a total of 9 weeks between November 2000 and April 2001. He won his first Grand Slam title at the 2000 U.S. Open after defeating Pete Sampras, and won the 2005 Australian Open, defeating Lleyton Hewitt.

Safin helped lead Russia to Davis Cup victories in 2002 and 2006. Despite his dislike of grass courts, he became the first Russian man to reach the semifinals of Wimbledon at the 2008 Wimbledon Championships. Safin is currently ranked no. 58 in the official world men's tennis rankings.

Lleyton Hewitt

Lleyton Hewitt

Lleyton Hewitt

Lleyton Glynn Hewitt (pronounced /ˈleɪtən ˈhjuː.ɨt) (born 24 February 1981) is a professional tennis player, and a former World No. 1 ranked player, from Australia. In 2000, Hewitt had won ATP titles on all three major surfaces (Hard, Clay and Grass) and reached one final on carpet.

By 2001, he became the youngest male ever to be ranked number one. His career best achievements are winning the 2001 US Open and 2002 Wimbledon men's singles titles, along with back-to-back ATP World Tour Finals (2001 and 2002). In 2005, TENNIS Magazine put Hewitt in 34th place on its list of the 40 greatest tennis players since 1965.

Hewitt is known for his competitiveness and has won most of his matches with fitness, consistency and skilled footwork. Hewitt spent much time in the late stages of 2004 working with his former coach and good friend, Roger Rasheed, on bulking up his physique. His hard work paid off after he made it to the final of the 2005 Australian Open, before losing to Marat Safin in 4 sets (1–6, 6–3, 6–4, 6–4).

Lindsay Davenport

Lindsay Davenport

Lindsay Ann Davenport (born June 8, 1976 in Palos Verdes, California) is a former World No. 1 American professional tennis player. She has won three Grand Slam singles tournaments and an Olympic gold medal in singles.

In 2005, Tennis magazine ranked her as the 29th-best player of the preceding forty years. She is one of only four women (the others being Steffi Graf, Martina Navratilova, and Chris Evert) since 1975 who has been the year-end World No. 1 at least four times. Davenport finished 1998, 2001, 2004, and 2005 as the top ranked player.

Davenport is the daughter of Wink Davenport, who was a member of the U.S. volleyball team at the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City, and Ann Davenport. She attended both Chadwick School in Palos Verdes Peninsula, California and Murrieta Valley High School in Murrieta, California. Davenport currently owns a home in the Irvine, California neighborhood of Shady Canyon.

In 2003, she married investment banker and former All-American tennis player Jon Leach, brother of tennis player Rick Leach.

Davenport took a break from competitive tennis in late 2006 and much of 2007 to have a baby. On June 10, 2007, she gave birth to a baby boy, Jagger Jonathan, in Newport Beach, California. She gave birth to a baby girl, Lauren Andrus, on June 27, 2009 in Newport Beach, California.

Kim Clijsters

Kim Clijsters by Mister-E

Kim Antonie Lode Clijsters (Dutch pronunciation: [ˈkɪm ˈklɛistərs] ( listen); born 8 June 1983, in Bilzen, Limburg) is a Belgian tennis player. She is a former World No. 1 ranked player in singles and in doubles.

During her professional career, Clijsters won 34 WTA singles titles and 11 WTA doubles titles. She won the US Open singles title in 2005 and the WTA Tour Championships singles title in 2002 and 2003. In doubles, she won the French Open and Wimbledon titles in 2003.

Clijsters was twice a singles runner-up at the French Open and a one-time runner-up at the Australian Open, also reaching two Wimbledon singles semifinals. She announced her retirement with immediate effect on 6 May 2007, but almost two years later, on 26 March 2009, she publicly declared her intent to return to the WTA tour next summer for several hardcourt tournaments in the United States and Canada, including the US Open.