Petra Kvitová

Petra Kvitová (Czech pronunciation: [ˈpɛtra ˈkvɪtovaː]; born 8 March 1990) is a Czech professional tennis player. Having turned professional in 2006, she is known for her powerful left-handed groundstrokes and variety. Kvitová has won seventeen career singles titles including two Grand Slam titles at Wimbledon. She reached her career-high ranking of world no. 2 on 31 October 2011 and is ranked world no. 8 by the Women's Tennis Association (WTA) as of 15 February 2016. As such, Kvitová is the current Czech number 1 and the second highest-ranked left-handed player in the WTA behind Germany's Angelique Kerber.

Kvitová first caused major waves by defeating then world no. 1 Dinara Safina in the third round of the 2009 US Open. This was followed by her first Grand Slam semifinal appearance at the 2010 Wimbledon Championships where she came up short to eventual champion Serena Williams. Then, during her breakthrough season in 2011, Kvitová won her first Grand Slam title at the Wimbledon Championships, defeating Maria Sharapova in the final, thus becoming the first and currently the only Grand Slam event winner of either gender born in the 1990s. She also won the 2011 WTA Tour Championships, thus becoming one of the three players to win the WTA Tour Championships on debut, the others being Williams and Sharapova. She also helped lead the Czech Republic to victory in the Fed Cup final that same year. It was the Czech Republic's first Fed Cup title as an independent nation.

Petra

Petra (Arabic: البترا, Al-Batrāʾ; Ancient Greek: Πέτρα), originally known as Raqmu to the Nabataeans, is a historical and archaeological city in the southern Jordanian governorate of Ma'an that is famous for its rock-cut architecture and water conduit system. Another name for Petra is the Rose City due to the color of the stone out of which it is carved.

Established possibly as early as 312 BC as the capital city of the Arab Nabataeans, it is a symbol of Jordan, as well as Jordan's most-visited tourist attraction. It lies on the slope of Jebel al-Madhbah (identified by some as the biblical Mount Hor) in a basin among the mountains which form the eastern flank of Arabah (Wadi Araba), the large valley running from the Dead Sea to the Gulf of Aqaba. Petra has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1985.

The site remained unknown to the western world until 1812, when it was introduced by Swiss explorer Johann Ludwig Burckhardt. It was described as "a rose-red city half as old as time" in a Newdigate Prize-winning poem by John William Burgon. UNESCO has described it as "one of the most precious cultural properties of man's cultural heritage". Petra was named amongst the New7Wonders of the World in 2007 and was also chosen by the Smithsonian Magazine as one of the "28 Places to See Before You Die".

WTA

WTA may refer to:

Maria Sharapova

Maria Yuryevna Sharapova (Russian: Мари́я Ю́рьевна Шара́пова; IPA: [mɐˈrʲijə ˈjʉrʲjɪvnə ʂɐˈrapəvə]; born 19 April 1987) is a Russian professional tennis player, who is ranked world No. 6 by the Women's Tennis Association (WTA). A United States resident since 1994, Sharapova has competed on the WTA tour since 2001. She has been ranked world No. 1 in singles by the WTA on five separate occasions, for a total of 21 weeks. She is one of ten women, and the only Russian, to hold the career Grand Slam. She is also an Olympic medalist, having earned silver for Russia in women's singles at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London.

Sharapova became the world No. 1 for the first time on August 22, 2005, at the age of 18, and last held the ranking for the fifth time for four weeks from June 11, 2012, to July 8, 2012. Her 35 singles titles and five Grand Slam titles—two at the French Open and one each at the Australian Open, Wimbledon, and US Open—rank third among active players, behind Serena and Venus Williams. She won the year-ending WTA Finals in her debut in 2004. She has also won three doubles titles.

BNP Paribas

BNP Paribas (French pronunciation: ​[be ɛn pe paʁibɑ]) is a French multinational bank and financial services company with global headquarters in Paris. BNP Paribas is one of the largest banks in the world. Based on 2012 information, BNP Paribas was ranked as the third-largest bank in the world, as measured by total assets, by Bloomberg and Forbes. In 2010, It was the world's 18th largest corporation, according to the Fortune Global 500 list, the rankings are based on revenues, accounted for as the sum of gross interest income and gross non. It was formed through the merger of Banque Nationale de Paris (BNP) and Paribas (see below for name origin) in 2000. The company is a component of the Euro Stoxx 50 stock market index.

The firm is a universal bank split into two strategic business units: Retail Banking & Services (which includes Asset Management, custodial banking, and real estate services), and Corporate and Institutional Banking. BNP Paribas's four domestic markets are France, Italy, Belgium, and Luxembourg. It also has significant retail operations in the United States, Poland, Turkey, Ukraine, and North Africa, as well as large-scale investment banking operations in New York, London, Hong Kong, and Singapore.