Sara Errani

Sara Errani

File:S Errani.jpeg Sara Errani in 2012
Country (sports)	Italy
Residence	Bologna, Italy
Born	(1987-04-29) April 29, 1987 Bologna, Italy
Height	1.64 m (5 ft 5 in)
Turned pro	2002
Plays	Right-handed (two-handed backhand)
Prize money	$2,488,393
Singles
Career record	298–217
Career titles	5 WTA, 2 ITF
Highest ranking	No. 14 (June 11, 2012)
Current ranking	No. 14 (June 11, 2012)
Grand Slam singles results
Australian Open	QF (2012)
French Open	SF (2012)
Wimbledon	3R (2010)
US Open	3R (2009, 2010)
Doubles
Career record	188–129
Career titles	13 WTA, 6 ITF
Highest ranking	No. 8 (May 14, 2012)
Current ranking	No. 8 (May 28, 2012)
Last updated on: May 28, 2012.

Sara Errani (born April 29, 1987 in Bologna, Italy), nicknamed "Poco Gigante", is a professional female tennis player from Italy. Her highest singles rank is 14th and her highest doubles rank is 8th. She has won five WTA titles in her career.

Career

Early life and Junior career

At age 12 her father sent her to the Nick Bollettieri Tennis Academy in Florida. At 16 she moved to Valencia, in Spain, to be coached by Pablo Lozano and David Andres.

Errani competed in her first event at the $10,000 Cagliari event in her native country of Italy in 2002 where she lost to Sun Tiantian 6–1, 6–0. She continued to compete in the ITF, where her best performance of the year was a semifinal appearance in $10,000 Zaton. She continued to participate mainly on the ITF, where she won her first tournament 6–1, 6–4 over Lucia Jiminez in Melilla, Italy 2005.

2008-2011

Her first WTA title of her career was in the Internazionali Femminili di Palermo, where she defeated Mariya Koryttseva. On July 27, 2008, she captured her second career title in two weeks defeating Anabel Medina Garrigues, 6–3, 6–3. She has also won six doubles WTA titles.

In 2009, Errani was the runner-up at two WTA tournaments: in Palermo and Portoroz, as the defending champion in both.

With Italy, she won the Fed Cup in 2009 and 2010.

In February 2011, she reached the final of the PTT Pattaya Open, where she was defeated by Daniela Hantuchová.

2012

Errani's breakthrough year came in 2012. At the 2012 Australian Open Errani advanced to her first grand slam quarterfinals, defeating Nadia Petrova, Sorana Cirstea, and Jie Zheng en route before losing to Petra Kvitova. Her ranking jumped to World No.33, a career best.

At the Abierto Monterrey Open, Errani was the 2nd seed where she reached the semi-finals, losing to eventual champion Timea Babos 6–4 6–7 6–4, but she triumphed in Acupulco on clay as the 3rd seed, winning her 3rd career title. She defeated fellow italians Roberta Vinci 7–5 6–1 and 2nd seed Flavia Pennetta 6–7(5) 7–5 6–0 in her last two matches.

Errani fell in the opening rounds of Indian Wells to Vania King 7–6 6–4, and in the 2nd round of the 2012 Sony Ericsson Open against Sloane Stephens 3–6 6–2 7–5.

As the 7th seed at the Barcelona Ladies Open, Errani stormed to her 4th career title and 2nd of the year year, not dropping a set as she sweeped through the draw , beating 2nd seeded Julia Goerges 6–2 6–3 (in QF), Carla Suarez Navarro 6–1 6–2 (in SF) and Dominika Cibulkova 6–2 6–2 in the final. Her ranking increased to World No. 28. In the Fed Cup semi-finals against Czech Republic, Errani lost to Petra Kvitova 6–4 6–3 and beat Andrea Hlavackova 3–6 6–2 6–2, with Italy losing the tie 4–1.

On May 7, 2012 Errani won the 2012 Budapest Grand Prix, tieing countrywoman Roberta Vinci for the most titles won by an Italian female in a year at three.

In addition to her singles wins, Errani also won 5 doubles titles with Roberta Vinci including the 2012 Mutua Madrid Open and the 2012 Internazionali BNL d'Italia. She and Vinci also made the finals of the 2012 Sony Ericsson Open and the 2012 Australian Open.

Her performance continued to flourish when she reached the semifinals of 2012 French Open. En route she defeated Casey Dellacqua, Melanie Oudin and 2008 and 2009 French Open winners Ana Ivanovic and Svetlana Kuznetsova. She booked a place in the Semifinals by eliminating the German 10th seed Angelique Kerber.

Major finals

Grand Slam

Doubles: 2 (0–1)

Outcome	Year	Championship	Surface	Partner	Opponents	Score
Runner-up	2012	Australian Open	Hard	Roberta Vinci	Svetlana Kuznetsova Vera Zvonareva	7–5, 4–6, 3–6
	2012	French Open	Clay	Roberta Vinci

Premier 5/Premier Mandatory

Doubles: 3 (2–1)

Outcome	Year	Championship	Surface	Partner	Opponents	Score
Runner-up	2012	Miami, United States	Hard	Roberta Vinci	Maria Kirilenko Nadia Petrova	6–7(0–7), 6–4, [4–10]
Winner	2012	Madrid, Spain	Clay (blue)	Roberta Vinci	Ekaterina Makarova Elena Vesnina	6–1, 3–6, [10–4]
Winner	2012	Rome, Italy	Clay	Roberta Vinci	Ekaterina Makarova Elena Vesnina	6–2, 7–5

WTA Career Finals

Singles: 8 (5–3)

Winner — Legend Grand Slam tournaments (0–0) WTA Tour Championships (0–0) Premier Mandatory & Premier 5 (0–0) Premier (0–0) International (5–3)

Finals by Surface Hard (1–2) Grass (0–0) Clay (4–1) Carpet (0–0)

Outcome	No.	Date	Tournament	Surface	Opponent	Score
Winner	1.	July 13, 2008	Palermo, Italy	Clay	Mariya Koryttseva	6–2, 6–3
Winner	2.	July 27, 2008	Portorož, Slovenia	Hard	Anabel Medina Garrigues	6–3, 6–3
Runner-up	1.	July 19, 2009	Palermo, Italy	Clay	Flavia Pennetta	1–6, 2–6
Runner-up	2.	July 26, 2009	Portorož, Slovenia	Hard	Dinara Safina	7–6(7–5), 1–6, 5–7
Runner-up	3.	February 13, 2011	Pattaya City, Thailand	Hard	Daniela Hantuchová	0–6, 2–6
Winner	3.	March 4, 2012	Acapulco, Mexico	Clay	Flavia Pennetta	5–7, 7–6(7–2), 6–0
Winner	4.	April 15, 2012	Barcelona, Spain	Clay	Dominika Cibulková	6–2, 6–2
Winner	5.	May 5, 2012	Budapest, Hungary	Clay	Elena Vesnina	7–5, 6–4

Doubles: 20 (13–7)

Winner — Legend Grand Slam tournaments (0–1) Olympic Gold (0) WTA Tour Championships (0–0) Premier Mandatory & Premier 5 (2–1) Premier (0–2) International (11–3)

Finals by Surface Hard (3–4) Grass (1–1) Clay (9–2) Carpet (0–0)

Outcome	No.	Date	Tournament	Surface	Partner	Opponent	Score
Winner	1.	July 13, 2008	Palermo, Italy	Clay	Nuria Llagostera Vives	Alla Kudryavtseva Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova	2–6, 7–6(7–1), [10–4]
Winner	2.	June 19, 2009	's-Hertogenbosch, Netherlands	Grass	Flavia Pennetta	Michaëlla Krajicek Yanina Wickmayer	6–4, 5–7, [13–11]
Runner-up	1.	February 22, 2010	Acapulco, Mexico	Clay	Roberta Vinci	Polona Hercog Barbora Záhlavová-Strýcová	6–2, 1–6, [2–10]
Winner	3.	April 11, 2010	Marbella, Spain	Clay	Roberta Vinci	Maria Kondratieva Yaroslava Shvedova	6–4, 6–2
Winner	4.	April 17, 2010	Barcelona, Spain	Clay	Roberta Vinci	Timea Bacsinszky Tathiana Garbin	6–1, 3–6, [10–2]
Winner	5.	July 17, 2010	Palermo, Italy (2)	Clay	Alberta Brianti	Jill Craybas Julia Görges	6–4, 6–1
Runner-up	2.	October 23, 2010	Moscow, Russia	Hard (i)	María José Martínez Sánchez	Gisela Dulko Flavia Pennetta	3–6, 6–2, [6–10]
Winner	6.	January 15, 2011	Hobart, Australia	Hard	Roberta Vinci	Kateryna Bondarenko Līga Dekmeijere	6–3, 7–5
Winner	7.	February 13, 2011	Pattaya City, Thailand	Hard	Roberta Vinci	Sun Shengnan Zheng Jie	3–6, 6–3, [10–5]
Runner-up	3.	April 10, 2011	Marbella, Spain	Clay	Roberta Vinci	Nuria Llagostera Vives Arantxa Parra Santonja	6–3, 4–6, [5–10]
Runner-up	4.	June 12, 2011	Birmingham, Great Britain	Grass	Roberta Vinci	Olga Govortsova Alla Kudryavtseva	6–1, 1–6, [5–10]
Winner	8.	July 16, 2011	Palermo, Italy (3)	Clay	Roberta Vinci	Andrea Hlaváčková Klára Zakopalová	7–5, 6–1
Runner-up	5.	August 27, 2011	New Haven, United States	Hard	Roberta Vinci	Chuang Chia-jung Olga Govortsova	5–7, 2–6
Runner-up	6.	January 27, 2012	Melbourne, Australia	Hard	Roberta Vinci	Svetlana Kuznetsova Vera Zvonareva	7–5, 4–6, 3–6
Winner	9.	February 26, 2012	Monterrey, Mexico	Hard	Roberta Vinci	Kimiko Date-Krumm Zhang Shuai	6–2, 7–6(8–6)
Winner	10.	March 4, 2012	Acapulco, Mexico	Clay	Roberta Vinci	Lourdes Dominguez Lino Arantxa Parra Santonja	6–2, 6–1
Runner-up	7.	March 31, 2012	Miami, United States	Hard	Roberta Vinci	Maria Kirilenko Nadia Petrova	6–7(0–7), 6–4, [4–10]
Winner	11.	April 15, 2012	Barcelona, Spain (2)	Clay	Roberta Vinci	Flavia Pennetta Francesca Schiavone	6–0, 6–2
Winner	12.	May 13, 2012	Madrid, Spain	Clay (blue)	Roberta Vinci	Ekaterina Makarova Elena Vesnina	6–1, 3–6, [10–4]
Winner	13.	May 20, 2012	Rome, Italy	Clay	Roberta Vinci	Ekaterina Makarova Elena Vesnina	6–2, 7–5

Women's singles performance timeline

Tournament	2006	2007	2008	2009	2010	2011	2012	W–L
Grand Slam tournaments
Australian Open	A	LQ	1R	3R	3R	1R	QF	8-5
French Open	A	LQ	1R	1R	1R	2R	SF	6-4
Wimbledon	LQ	A	1R	2R	3R	2R		4-4
US Open	LQ	2R	2R	3R	3R	1R		6-5

External links

• Sara Errani at the Women's Tennis Association