Francesca Schiavone: A recap of her performances this year
Born on 23 June 1980 in the city of Milan, Francesca Schiavone is a professional tennis player from Italy. The thirty year old Italian turned professional back in 1998. Francesca captured the clay court French Open singles trophy this year and thus registered her name as the first tennis player from her country to win a major event in singles. The Milan resident achieved her career high ranking of world number seven by the WTA during the month of June this year. The right handed Francesca is currently ranked number seven in the world.
As far as her 2010 performances are concerned, Francesca participated at the hard court Australian Open tennis tournament as her very first competition of the season. During the first round of the tournament, the Italian tennis player knocked down her French opponent Alize Cornet in a total of three sets. The final match score was 0–6, 7–5, and 6–0. She did well to reach the fourth round of the competition however was thrashed out by the sixth seeded American, Venus Williams in a total of three sets. The final match score was 3–6, 6–2, 6–1.
The thirty year old Schiavone next played at the Barcelona Ladies Open tennis tournament where she downed Tathiana Garbin, Yaroslava Shvedova, Alberta Brianti, Roberta Vinci as well as Carla Suarez Navarro, all in straight sets to capture her third WTA trophy of the career.
Schiavone then entered the Roland Garros, seeded seventeen, to win the title. She hammered down Sophie Ferguson, Li Na, Regina Kulikova as well as Maria Kirilenko to make her way into the first quarterfinal round of the French Open tournament since 2001. In the quarters, the Italian eliminated the current second ranked tennis ace from the women’s side, Caroline Wozniacki in straight sets and thus registered her name as the first Italian female tennis player to reach the semi final of a major singles competition.
The semi final at the Roland Garros featured a total of four players from the women’s side namely Samantha Stosur, Elena Dementieva, Jelena Jankovic as well as Schiavone herself. In spite of the fact that Schiavone was not the top favourite to win the semis, she did well to defeat the fifth ranked Dementieva and thus made her way into the first final of a Grand Slam event.
In the final battle, the Italian met Stosur as her opponent on the clay court at Roland Garros. Stosur, who made her way into the final battle after knocking down big names including the top ranked American Serena Williams as well as Jelena Jankovic, was considered the hot favourite to win the title after getting the better of Schiavone in straight sets. However, contrary to everyone’s expectations, the right handed Italian registered her name as the first Italian female tennis player to capture a major single trophy, after knocking down Samantha Stosur in a total of two sets. The final match score was 6–4 7–6 (2).
The win made her only the third Italian female tennis player to capture a major crown in singles, after Adriano Panatta as well as Nicola Pietrangeli. As a result of this victory, she also improved her WTA rankings to as high as number six in the world back in June, making her the highest ranked female tennis player from Italy after Flavia Pennetta reached world number ten back in 2009.
Schiavone's next competition after the clay court French Open tennis tournament was Eastbourne, where she was dismissed in the first round by Sorana Cirstea in a two setter clash. The final match score was 5-7, 3-6.
At the grass court Grand Slam tournament, Francesca Schiavone was seeded fifth to win the title. However, she was knocked down by Vera Dushevina in the first round of the competition in a three setter clash. The final match score was 7-6, 5-7, 1-6.
In a more recent news, the Italian is participating in the Pilot Pen tennis tournament, held in New Heaven and is likely to regain her lost form prior to the fourth major of the event.
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