Mary Pierce

Mary Pierce (born January 15, 1975, in Montreal, Canada) is a tennis professional playing on the Women's Tennis Association (WTA) tour. She is a French-American who plays under the French flag.
Pierce has won four Grand Slam titles, two in singles and two in doubles. She has reached six Grand Slam singles finals, most recently at the U.S. Open and French Open in 2005. Her Grand Slam singles titles came at the 2000 French Open and the 1995 Australian Open. She won the 2005 Wimbledon mixed doubles championship and has reached three Grand Slam doubles finals. She has won 18 WTA singles titles and 10 WTA doubles titles, including five Tier I singles events. She also has twice reached the final of the season-ending WTA Tour Championships, most recently in 2005.

Early career
Pierce was introduced to tennis at the age of 10 by her father Jim Pierce. Just two years later, she won the US national 12-and-under junior title. In 1989, she became the youngest American player to make her debut on the professional tour, aged 14 years and 2 months. (This record was broken the following year by Jennifer Capriati.) She quickly gained a reputation for being one of the all-time hardest hitters on the women's circuit.
During her first few years on the tour, Pierce was better known for the behavior of her father, more so than her performances on court. Jim Pierce, who also coached Mary, often shouted abuse at her opponents during matches. On one occasion when he was sitting in the stands, he notoriously screamed, "Mary, kill the bitch!" He was also reportedly often verbally and physically abusive to Mary during practice sessions and after defeats. Jim Pierce was ejected from the French Open in 1993 after he punched a spectator, following which he was banned from all Women's Tennis Association (WTA) Tour events until 1998. The incident also prompted the WTA to pass a new rule (commonly referred to as the "Jim Pierce Rule") which prohibits abusive conduct on the part of players, coaches, and relatives. Mary dropped her father as her coach in 1993 and took out a restraining order against him. A few weeks later, he got into a fight with her bodyguard at a hotel where she was staying. He then sued her claiming that he had been promised 25% of her earnings as a tennis player, and she paid him US$500,000 to drop the suit and to leave her alone. She withdrew from the Wimbledon tournament in 1994 after a British tabloid newspaper threatened to smuggle her father into the grounds.
1994 - 2003
In 1994, Pierce reached her first Grand Slam final at the French Open. She was the first player ever to reach this tournament's fourth round while dropping only two games. She conceded just 10 games during her route to the final, which included a 6–2, 6–2 defeat of World No. 1 Steffi Graf in the semifinals. In the final, however, Pierce lost to Arantxa Sánchez Vicario 6–4, 6–4.
In 1995, Pierce won her first Grand Slam title by defeating Sánchez-Vicario in the final of the Australian Open 6–3, 6–2. She reached her career-high singles ranking of World No. 3 that year. Pierce also won the Japan Open, defeating Sanchez-Vicario in the final 6–3, 6–3.
In 1996, Pierce suffered a series of setbacks, including her split with Nick Bollettieri after failing to defend her title at the 1996 Australian Open. Aside from a runner-up finish in Amelia Islan, Florida and a semifinal finish in Hamburg, the highlight of the year for Pierce was her first appearance in the Wimbledon quarterfinals.
In 1997, Pierce was back in the Australian Open singles final, where she lost to Martina Hingis 6–2, 6–2. She also lost in that year's WTA Tour Championships final to Jana Novotná. Pierce was a member of the French team that won the 1997 Fed Cup, and her only title that season was the Italian Open, defeating Conchita Martinez in the final 6–4, 6–0. Pierce won the Comeback Player of the Year award for ending the year at No. 7 in the world after starting at No. 21.
Pierce won four titles in 1998: Paris, Amelia Island, Moscow, and Luxembourg. In addition, she was the runner-up in San Diego.
Pierce won her second Grand Slam singles title and her first Grand Slam doubles title at the 2000 French Open. In the singles final, she defeated Martínez 6–2, 7–5 to become the first French woman to claim the title since Francoise Durr in 1967. And she partnered Hingis to win the women's doubles crown. (The pair also were the runners-up at the Australian Open earlier that year.)
Pierce helped France win the Fed Cup for a second time in 2003.

2004 - 2005
After a few quiet years on the tour, Pierce won her first title since the 2000 French Open at 's-Hertogenbosch in 2004.
She then burst back into the top ranks of the women's game in 2005. At the French Open, she reached the singles final for the third time, where she lost to Justine Henin 6–1, 6–1. She then reached the quarterfinals of Wimbledon for the first time since 1996. Pierce faced Venus Williams in that quarterfinal and lost the match after a long second set tiebreak consisting of 22 points. Pierce also won the mixed doubles title at Wimbledon, partnering Mahesh Bhupathi. In August, Pierce won her first singles title of the year in San Diego, defeating Ai Sugiyama in the final.
Pierce then reached the final of the 2005 U.S. Open. In the fourth round, she defeated Henin for the first time in her career and avenged her French Open final defeat by winning 6–3, 6–4. In the quarterfinals, Pierce defeated third seed Amélie Mauresmo 6–4, 6–1 to reach her first U.S. Open semifinal. After the victory, Pierce remarked, "I'm 30 and I have been on the tour for 17 years and there are still firsts for me. That's pretty amazing." She reached the final by defeating Elena Dementieva 3–6, 6–2, 6–2 in the semifinals. In the final, she lost to Kim Clijsters 6–3, 6–1.
After the U.S. Open, Pierce won her second title of 2005 at the Kremlin Cup in Moscow. In her quarterfinal match against Russian Elena Likhovtseva, Pierce came back from 0–6 in the third set tiebreak (6 match points down) and won 8 consecutive points to reach the semifinals. The final score of the match was 7–5, 4–6, 7–6(6).
The win in Moscow secured her spot at the WTA Tour Championships in Los Angeles where the top eight singles players in the world competed for the winner's prize of one million dollars. In round-robin play with her assigned group of four players, she won all three matches: against Clijsters in three sets; Mauresmo in three sets; and Dementieva in straight sets. In the semifinals, Pierce beat top-ranked Lindsay Davenport 7–6(5), 7–6(6); however, Pierce lost the final to Mauresmo 5–7, 7–6(3), 6–4 in just over three hours.
Pierce's year-end ranking was No. 5, a considerable improvement on her year-beginning ranking of No. 29. This matched her career-best performances of 1994, 1995, and 1999, and she was less than 200 points behind Maria Sharapova for No. 4 and less than 300 points behind Mauresmo for No. 3. Pierce's return to form in 2005 was one of the most surprising tennis stories of the year. Her successful performance in 2005 also encouraged the former world No. 1 player, Martina Hingis, to return to the game.

2006
Pierce trained hard in the off-season in a bid to win major titles in 2006. Her first tournament of the year was the Australian Open. She defeated Nicole Pratt of Australia 6–1, 6–1 in the first round before losing to Iveta Benešová of the Czech Republic in the second round 6–3, 7–5. The loss denied her a third-round match with Martina Hingis.
Pierce reached the final of her next tournament, the Gaz de France in Paris, where she lost to compatriot Amélie Mauresmo 6–1, 7–6(6).
Pierce did not play again until August because of foot and groin injuries, withdrawing from the French Open and Wimbledon.
After spending six months away from the tour, Pierce began her comeback at the Acura Classic in San Diego, where she was the 2005 champion. She lost in the quarterfinals to Maria Sharapova 6–2, 6–3.
In just her second tournament in over six months, Pierce played at the U.S. Open. Pierce lost to Na Li, the 24th seed from China, in the third round 4–6, 6–0, 6–0.
Pierce then lost in the first round of the next three tournaments she played. She was defeated in Luxembourg by Alona Bondarenko 6–3, 6–3, who went on to win the title. Jelena Janković defeated Pierce in Stuttgart 7–6(7), 6–3. And Katarina Srebotnik defeated Pierce in Zurich 6–3, 7–5.

Knee injury and return to tour
At a tournament in Linz in October 2006, Pierce defeated Ai Sugiyama in the first round and was leading Vera Zvonareva 6–4, 6–5 in the second round when Pierce ruptured her anterior cruciate ligament in her left knee. She had held three match points before the injury.
Pierce underwent a successful operation in December 2006 and missed all of 2007. Currently rehabilitating her knee in Vail, Colorado, she expects to return to the tour in 2008. Not ready to retire, she stated that she still has things she would like to accomplish, including playing the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
Pierce made an appearance at the 2007 French Open as an avenue at Roland Garros was named in her honor - Allée Mary Pierce. She also helped with the social side to the French Open, taking part in the post match ceremony after the women's final.

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