Lucie Šafářová
Lucie Šafářová (born 4 February 1987 in Brno, then Czechoslovakia ) is a Czech female tennis player.
Career
Šafářová began at the age of three years with the tennis games. She prefers playing on clay courts. In the German tennis league it takes for the TC Blau-Weiss Bocholt, with which it was in 2012 and 2013 German team champion.
Lucie Šafářová one of the few left-handed inside the WTA Tour, on which it has so far won five individual titles. In 2005, she defeated in the finals of Estoril, the Chinese Li Na. In the same year they defeated in the final of the Forest Hills Indian Sania Mirza in three sets. In 2006 she won a victory over Flavia Pennetta smooth final tournament of the Gold Coast. Their fourth single success she succeeded again in 2008 in Forest Hills ( warm-up tournament for the U.S. Open ) with a playoff victory over the Chinese Peng Shuai.
At the beginning of 2007 were Šafářová in the second round of the Hobart later Australian Open champion Serena Williams 3:6, 6:3 and 6:7. At the Australian Open she reached then for the first time in her career, the second round of a Grand Slam tournament. She beat defending champion Amélie Mauresmo, then the number 2 in the world, with 6:4 and 6:3. In the quarterfinals, then defeated her compatriot Nicole Vaidišová with 1:6, 4:6.
In the " Open Gaz " in Paris Šafářová moved to victories over Nicole Vaidišová, Svetlana Kuznetsova, as well as the No. 1 seedings, Justine Henin, the final. There they had to Nadia Petrova 6-4, 1:6, 4:6 beaten.
At the French Open she succeeded in 2007 in the third round again a victory ( 6-3, 7-6 ) over Amélie Mauresmo. Then lost her second round match against Anna Chakvetadze of Russia. At Wimbledon, she was disqualified in the third round against Jelena Janković.
In 2008 she participated for the Czech team at the Olympic Games in Beijing. She lost her match against Sybille Bammer in the second round with 5:7 and 4:6.
On 12 June 2011 she lost the final of Copenhagen defending champion Caroline Wozniacki in their home tournament in two straight sets. The Czech team won on November 6 in Moscow the Fed Cup by a 3-2 final win against Russia.
In April 2012, she succeeded on the tour and the first tournament victory in the doubles. In Charleston she defeated Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova at the side of the Duo Medina Garrigues / Shvedova. On August 20, it marked the 17th individual with a new personal best in the WTA ranking.
2013, it improved by good results in the double world rankings; after her third title victory in a WTA tournament (Madrid ), and after their first quarter-finals at Roland Garros she took 17th place. On the side of her Pavlyuchenkova also succeeded in the first knockout round participation at the U.S. Open. In September Šafářová won after a dry spell of more than five years back a single title on the tour; in the final, she defeated Marina Erakovic of Quebec in two straight sets.
2014, it stood at the Australian Open, as last year, in the second round of the doubles competition. So she climbed into the double world ranking in 15th place - a new personal best.
Personal
Šafářová was with the Czech tennis player Tomas Berdych dating, the couple separated in 2011.