Sara Errani
Sara Errani, an Italian No. 1 player (2012) was born on 29th April 1987 in Bologna, Italy. She has won 6 singles titles in her career so far as is rated as World’s No.6 as of 12th Nov 2012. She is also rated as the World’s No.2 in Doubles.
Errani is known to be a specialist in the clay courts. Her best season was in 2012 when she reached the Doubles finals and the singles quarter-finals in the Australian Open.
She also reached the finals of the French Open in 2012 in both the singles and doubles events winning the doubles title along with partner Roberta Vinci.
She also secured the US Open Doubles title in 2012. She reached the US Open semi-finals too in 2012 leaving Wimbledon as the only Grand slam event in which Errani has yet to break to the quarter-finals.
Errani started her career in 2002 and holds a more impressive double ranking in her career up to now as she has reached the rank of world’s No. 1 in doubles on 10th September 2012.
The year 2012, was the most impressive year of her performance as she won 3 singles titles in the first five months of the year and earned a huge amount of $1.3 million as prize money.
Errani is also known to be the First Italian woman to have reached the semifinals of the US Open which she won with the successful pairing with her partner Roberta Vinci. She also won the Fed Cup in 2009 and 2010 with Italy.
Francesca Schiavone
Francesca Schiavone was born on the 23rd of June 1980 in Milan, Italy. She started playing professional tennis in 1998 and went ahead to win the 2010 French open Singles title securing the position of being the first Italian woman to win a Grand Slam singles title.
She was also the finalist in the 2011 French open singles event after losing to Li Na. As of Nov 12, 2012, she was ranked as World’s No. 35, after being at the rank of No.4 which is her career’s best on 31st of January, 2011. She is currently ranked as the World’s No.51 in the doubles after reaching as high as No.8 on the 12th of February 2007.
Her major doubles record in the Grand Slam includes reaching the semi-finals of the Australian Open in 2009. She was also the finalist in the French Open in 2008 and the semi-finalist in the US Open in 2006 and the Wimbledon in 2012.
Schiavone also succeeded in reaching the quarter-finals of the summer Olympics held in 2004. Schiavone is known to have a classical approach towards her claycourt games and employs her extreme eastern grip on the one-handed backhand hers.
Schiavone has 5 WTA tour titles on her record along with 10 runners up positions too from 2005 to date. Schiavone before winning her initial title in 2007 July, lost eight career finals, however, teamed with her partners the Italian team beat Belgium in the Fed Cup finals in 2006.
