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Mary Pierce

Country France

Residence Sarasota, Florida, USA

Date of birth January 15, 1975

Place of birth Montreal, Canada

Height 1.78 m ( 5 ft 10 in)

Weight 68 kg ( 150 lb)

 

Mary Pierce (born on January 15, 1975, in Montreal, Canada) is a French-American women's professional tennis player on the WTA and one of the leading women in professional sports with multiple Grand Slam tennis championships to her name. She has won four Grand Slam titles, two in singles and two in doubles. Pierce plays for France.

During her long career, she has reached six Grand Slam singles finals, including the 2005 U.S. Open. She has reached three Grand Slam doubles finals, claiming two of them, including the 2005 Wimbledon mixed doubles championship. She has won 18 WTA singles titles and 10 WTA doubles titles, including five WTA Tier I singles events. She also has twice reached the final of the season-ending WTA Tour Championships, most recently in 2005.

Contents

1 Early life

2 Early career

3 1995 - 2003

4 2004 - 2005

5 2006

5.1 Knee Injury and return to tour

6 Personal life

7 Grand Slam singles finals

7.1 Wins (2)

7.2 Runner-ups (4)

8 Grand Slam doubles finals

8.1 Wins (2)

9 Tournament wins

9.1 Singles (18)

9.2 Doubles (10)

10 Major tournament singles performance timeline

11 WTA Tour career earnings

12 External links

Early life

Pierce was born in Montreal while her French mother and American father were on a trip to the city. She was raised in the United States and lives in Sarasota, Florida. Thus, she has had or has been eligible for United States, Canadian, and French citizenship, and she has represented France in international tennis competitions many times. She speaks English and French fluently.

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.