Background and career
Flavia Pennetta (Italian pronunciation: [ˈflaːvja penˈnetta]; born 25 February 1982) is an Italian former professional tennis player. She became Italy's first top-ten female singles player on 17 August 2009 and the first Italian to be ranked world No. 1 in doubles on 28 February 2011. She is a Grand Slam champion in both doubles and singles, having won the 2011 Australian Open women's doubles title with Gisela Dulko and the 2015 US Open singles title over childhood friend Roberta Vinci in the first all-Italian major final. Pennetta won ten other WTA singles titles, including the 2014 Indian Wells Open, where she defeated the top two seeds. She also was a mainstay in the Fed Cup team competition, helping Italy win four titles in 2006, 2009, 2010, and 2013. Her other highlights in doubles include winning the 2010 WTA Finals with Dulko and finishing runner-up at the 2005 and 2014 US Open tournaments, partnering respectively with Elena Dementieva and Martina Hingis. After winning the 2015 US Open, Pennetta announced she would retire at the end of the season, playing her last tournament at her WTA Finals singles debut. There, she defeated eventual champion Agnieszka Radwańska in the round-robin stage and retired with a top-ten singles ranking. Pennetta was pronounced a Knight of Order of Merit of the Republic on 24 January 2007 by Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, then President of Italy.
Pennetta was introduced to tennis at the age of five by her father. At age 17, she won the 1999 French Open in girls' doubles with fellow Italian Roberta Vinci. Pennetta began to play on the ITF Women's Circuit in 1997. The following year, she lost in the second round of her first qualifying tournament for a WTA Tour main draw, the Internazionali Femminili di Palermo. In 1999, Pennetta won two singles titles and two doubles titles on the ITF Circuit. She was unsuccessful in her several attempts to qualify for WTA Tour main draws in 2000. The following year, she limited her play to the ITF Circuit. She played her first WTA Tour main-draw match at the Cellular South Cup in 2002, when she lost in the first round. She also lost in the first round in Palermo but reached the second round of the Idea Prokom Open in Sopot. Her ranking reached the top 100 for the first time on 23 September 2002, when she reached No. 100.
In 2003, Pennetta lost in the semifinals of the Hyderabad Open to eventual champion Tamarine Tanasugarn. She also reached the quarterfinals at the Canberra Women's Classic, Copa Colsanitas, and Abierto Mexicano Telcel. She debuted in the main draws of all four Grand Slam tournaments. Her best result was the third round of the Roland Garros, where she defeated 21st-seeded American Lisa Raymond in the second round, before losing to Hungary's Petra Mandula.
Pennetta started the year at the Tier V Canberra Classic, where she lost in the quarterfinals to Julia Vakulenko. At the Australian Open, she lost in the first round to Italian Antonella Serra Zanetti in straight sets. Pennetta then lost in the first round of both the Cellular South Cup in Memphis, Tennessee and the Copa Colsanitas in Bogotá, Colombia. These losses were followed by her first WTA Tour final at the Mexicano Open in Acapulco, where she was defeated by Iveta Benešová. She played both of the Tier I springtime hardcourt tournaments in the United States. She beat Ľudmila Cervanová in the first round of the Pacific Life Open in Indian Wells before losing to Maria Sharapova. She then lost in the first round of qualifying for the NASDAQ-100 Open in Key Biscayne. Returning to clay courts, Pennetta lost in the second round of two consecutive WTA tournaments, the Morocco Open in Casablanca and the Portugal Open in Estoril. At the Budapest Grand Prix, Pennetta lost in the semifinals to eventual champion Jelena Janković in straight sets. She then defeated world No. 6, Nadia Petrova, in the second round of the Internazionali BNL d'Italia in Rome before falling to world No. 21, Anna Smashnova, in the third round. At the French Open, Pennetta lost in the first round, once more to Smashnova in straight sets. In the first grass-court tournament of her career, she defeated Marion Bartoli in the first round of the DFS Classic in Birmingham, before losing to world No. 32, Alicia Molik, in the second round. Pennetta achieved the same result at the Ordina Open, falling to world No. 85, Barbara Schett. At Wimbledon, she was beaten by Petrova in the first round, in three sets. In July, she played yet another clay-court tournament, where she was beaten in the final of the Internazionali di Palermo by Anabel Medina Garrigues. Returning to hard courts for the first time since April, she lost to Henrieta Nagyová in the first round of the Nordic Light Open in Stockholm. The following week at the clay-court tournament in Sopot, Poland, Pennetta won her first WTA Tour title, defeating Klára Koukalová in the final. Pennetta then lost to former world No. 1, Lindsay Davenport, in the quarterfinals of the Cincinnati Open, and to world No. 25, Magdalena Maleeva, in the first round of the US Open, 6–2, 4–6, 4–6. Pennetta played four tournaments the remainder of the year. At the Wismilak International in Bali, Pennetta lost in the second round to eventual quarterfinalist Gisela Dulko. She then fell to María Vento-Kabchi in the first round of the China Open in Beijing and to Tamarine Tanasugarn in the second round of the Guangzhou International Open. In her final event of the year, she lost to world No. 14, Ai Sugiyama, in the second round of the Zurich Open, in two sets.
In Pennetta's first event of the year, she reached the quarterfinals of the Brisbane International losing to Tatiana Golovin in three sets. She then lost in the first rounds of the Australian Open and the Open Gaz de France. In the next two weeks she won two titles in a row, the first one, Copa Colsanitas defeating Lourdes Domínguez Lino in the finals, 7–6, 6–4, and the second one, the Mexican Open, defeating Ľudmila Cervanová in three sets. Pennetta lost early in her next tournaments. The second rounds of the Pacific Life Open, the German Open and the Rome Masters. She also lost in the first round of the Estoril Open and the third rounds of the Miami Masters and the French Open. She bounced back in the Wimbledon Championships by reaching the fourth round, losing to Mary Pierce in straight sets, and the semifinals of both the Internazionali di Modena and the Internazionali Femminili di Palermo, which were held in Italy. She followed it up with losses to Japanese players Akiko Morigami in the San Diego Classic and Aiko Nakamura in the LA Championships. In the Rogers Cup she was crushed by eventual champion Kim Clijsters 6–0, 6–1. In the US Open she was upset by German Julia Schruff in the first round. She also lost early in the China Open in the first round and the Kremlin Cup in the second round to eventual champion Mary Pierce. She ended the year with quarterfinal appearances in the Wismilak International, the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix, and the Zurich Open. She ended the year ranked No. 23 in the world.
Flavia had a good start to the 2006 season, finishing runner-up at Gold Coast against Lucie Šafářová. At Sydney, she was defeated by Li Na in the first round. Going into the Australian Open, Pennetta defeated Cara Black and Martina Suchá, before falling to Nicole Vaidišová in the third round. In Paris, she was upset by rising star Sania Mirza in two sets. Pennetta started to pick up her pace as the season went on, with two runner-up showings at Bogotá and Acapulco, losing to Lourdes Domínguez Lino and Anna-Lena Grönefeld, respectively.
