Kaia Kanepi (pronunciation: KY-ah KAH-nep-i; IPA: [ˈkɑiɑ ˈkɑnepi]; born 10 June 1985 in Haapsalu) is an Estonian professional tennis player. Her career-high ranking is world no. 16 reached on 14 February 2011.
Kanepi won her first Sony Ericsson WTA Tour title in Palermo in 2010, becoming the first Estonian female player to win a WTA title. She has also reached three Grand Slam quarterfinals, becoming the first Estonian to achieve this and was the first Estonian to be ranked in the top 20. She then won her second title at the Brisbane International in January 2012.
Her father, Jaak (a real estate broker) and mother Anne (a homemaker) played tennis. They also have daughters Kadri, who won a tennis scholarship to study in the U.S., and Karin, a dedicated horse rider. Kaia, who always watched her parents and sisters play, discovered her love for tennis at an early age. She started playing at the age of 8. Her family has always supported her desire to play professional tennis. She reached world no. 1 on the International Tennis Federation (ITF) junior rankings before turning professional in 2000. She has won eight ITF singles titles and is now the top-ranked Estonian female tennis player.
Kanepi is a small borough (alevik) in Kanepi Parish, Põlva County in southeastern Estonia.
The name Kanep means "cannabis" in Estonian.
Street in Kanepi
Kanepi church
War of Independence memorial in Kanepi
Laura Robson (born 21 January 1994) is a British tennis player. She debuted on the International Tennis Federation (ITF) junior tour in 2007, and a year later won the Wimbledon Junior Girls' Championship at the age of 14. As a junior, she also twice reached the final of the Australian Open, in 2009 and 2010. She won her first professional tournament in November 2008. As of 28 May 2012, Robson had a rank on the WTA singles tour of 126 and doubles tour of 1073.
Robson was born on 21 January 1994 in Melbourne, Australia, the third child of Australian parents Andrew, an oil executive with Royal Dutch Shell, and Kathy Robson, a sports coach and former professional basketball player. Robson and her family moved from Melbourne to Singapore when she was eighteen months old, and then to the UK when she was six. According to her parents, she began playing tennis "as soon as she could hold a tennis racquet", and after being encouraged by them, she entered a junior tennis academy at age 7. She signed with management company Octagon when she was 10, with Adidas at age 11, and also signed a racquet deal with Wilson Sporting Goods. After working with several coaches, including the head of the Lawn Tennis Association, Carl Maes, she chose coach Martijn Bok in 2007. Bok said later that although Robson "had trouble staying emotionally under control", he "saw right away...a lot of potential in Laura." Robson also began training at the National Tennis Centre, under the guidance of Bok, Maes, and the head of women's tennis at the centre, Nigel Sears, while taking school lessons at home.
Maria Yuryevna Sharapova (Russian: Мария Юрьевна Шарапова [mɐˈrʲijə ˈjurʲjɪvnə ʂɐˈrapəvə] ( listen), US: /ʃɑrəˈpoʊvə/, UK: /ʃærəˈpoʊvə/; born April 19, 1987) is a Russian professional tennis player and former world no. 1. A United States resident since 1994, Sharapova has won 26 WTA singles titles, including three Grand Slam singles titles at the 2004 Wimbledon, 2006 US Open and 2008 Australian Open. She has also won the year-end WTA Tour Championships in 2004. The Women's Tennis Association has ranked Sharapova world no. 1 in singles on four separate occasions. She became the world no. 1 for the first time on August 22, 2005, and last regained the ranking for the fourth time on May 19, 2008. As of May 28, 2012, Sharapova is ranked world no. 2. She has been in six Grand Slam finals with the final record 3–3.
Sharapova made her professional breakthrough in 2004 at age 17, when she defeated two-time defending champion and top seed Serena Williams in the 2004 Wimbledon final for her first Grand Slam singles title. She entered the top 10 of the WTA Rankings with the win. Despite not winning a major in 2005, Sharapova briefly held the no. 1 ranking, and reached three Grand Slam semifinals, losing to the eventual champion each time. She won her second major at the 2006 US Open defeating then-world no. 1 Amélie Mauresmo in the semifinals and world no. 2 Justine Henin in the final.
Sara Errani (born April 29, 1987 in Bologna, Italy), nicknamed "Poco Gigante", is a professional female tennis player from Italy. On May 21, 2012, she reached a new career-high of no. 23 on the Tour rankings. On May 14, 2012, Errani became a top 10 doubles player and had a career high rank of World No. 8. She won five WTA titles in her career, and also has two ITF Titles.
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.
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.