Famous Athletes Biography: Rebecca Marino

Thursday, 29 March 2012

Rebecca Marino

Rebecca Marino Biography

Rebecca Marino was born on December 16th 1990 in Toronto, Ontario. With a world ranking of 104 she is currently Canada's highest world ranked singles player.

She moved with her family to Vancouver at the age of 2 years-old and still lives there. She started playing tennis at the age of 10 and competed in her first tournament in 2005 at the age of 14.

The following year she played in her first tour qualifying event for The Rogers Cup in Montreal on a Wild Card and the same year (2006) she won her first singles title in Trecastagni on the ITF Circuit and also won two doubles titles on the same circuit.

In 2009 she moved to Montreal to train at the National Training Centre and in 2010 she played the first Grand Slam of her career at the U.S. Open.

After winning three qualifying matches to reach the main draw she beat Ksenia Pervak in the first round to set up a second round march against World number 4 Venus Williams.

Marino fought very hard but lost the first set on a tie break which gave Williams the incentive she needed to take the bit between her teeth. She sailed through the second set to take the match 7-6/6-3.

In her next tournament in Quebec City, the Bell Challenge, she had her first career win against a Top 20 player when she knocked out top seed, World Number 14 Marion Bartoli 6-3/6-1 in the 2nd round. She reached the Quarter Final only to fall to American Bethanie Mattek-Sands.

Marino then had the best winning streak in her career taking three 50K Tournaments titles in a row, Saguenay in Quebec, Kansas City and Troy but she was unable to keep up the momentum and take a 4th consecutive title when she lost to French Player Alize Lim at the 50K Challenger event in Toronto.

Marino is one of the tallest players on the Women's Tour standing at 6 feet 1 inches / 1 meter 85 tall. When she is not on court she likes watching hockey and supports Vancouver Canucks, and likes to relax by watching movies.

Her parents own a construction company in Vancouver and her brother is on the rowing team at Berkeley University. She comes from a sporting family as her uncle won a gold medal at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics for rowing.

2011 has not started well for Marino as she failed to qualify in Brisbane and Sydney but she did get through the first round of the Australian Open having beaten Japanese player Junri Namigata in thre sets.

In the second round she came up against the 2010 French Open Champion Francesca Schiavone and she lost the match in a tough three-setter.

The match has made her believe that it will not be long before she comes out on top when playing a high-profile player in the same nerve-wracking conditions.

At the post-match press conference she said "The more I play these sort of matches I will definitely be more experienced and more confident."

She admitted nerves got the better of her in the first set but she managed to steady herself in the second winning it 7-5. She only just missed out on taking the third set and the match losing it 7-9.

Rebecca Marino