Patty Schnyder retires from professional tennis – Tennis News
Switzerland’s top tennis star, Patty Schnyder calls it a day after her 17 years of professional tennis career. After displaying dismal performance this season especially at Roland Garros 2011, she retired to experience other interests and to live her life.
Ranked 55th in the world, Schnyder had a superb career as she stayed in top ten rankings for 94 weeks. She made twenty-seven final berths and shelved eleven WTA titles.
The Swiss turned pro in 1994 and won her first title at Hobart in 1998. She triumphed over all time great tennis players including Martina Hingis, Lindsay Davenport, Serena Williams, Steffi Graf, Kim Clijsters, Justine Henin and current world number one Caroline Wozniacki but she could never reach a Grand Slam final. However, the furthest she made was a semi-final berth at 2004 Australian Open. In addition to this, she reached quarter-finals of six other Grand Slam events.
Despite her success, the blooming Swiss star was on a poor run of form this season as she won only three matches and lost nine. She was ousted from the opening rounds of several tournaments this year. After her opening round loss to Romanian Sorana Cirstea on her 59th Grand Slam appearance at French Open 2011, the Swiss decided to retire.
"It's time to close this amazing chapter of my life," Schnyder, who was standing on a four match losing streak, said in a statement released by the WTA. "This very emotional decision makes me thankful and proud of all the moments I have been able to share on and off the court with fans from all over the world, and with the champions and legends from many decades."
Her current form wasn’t the only reason, she took this decision after looking at numerous reasons which made her decide to put an end to her tennis career.
The 32-year-old had to face many controversies as she made headlines when she was 20-year-old after dumping her Dutch coach Eric van Harpen for Rainer Harnecker. Harnecker is the one who convinced her to drink three litres of orange juice a day.
Her parents hired a private detective, Rainer Hofmann, to help her out. The detective succeeded to pull her out from Harnecker, though they eventually married.
Swiss’ relations with journalists weren’t good and that’s why she had a bad image. Schnyder didn’t get close to reporters which created more misunderstandings instead of clearing things out.
“My feeling is that she considered us her enemies most of the time – she didn’t see that we were also helping her career and she could have had a much better public image if she had handled her media affairs a little better,” Rene Stauffer, a tennis journalist said about the Swiss.
Nevertheless, Schnyder had a memorable career and made a remarkable entry in tennis history.
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