Famous Athletes Biography: Patty Schnyder

Saturday, 21 April 2012

Patty Schnyder

Patty Schnyder Biography

Patty Schnyder (born December 14, 1978, Basel, Switzerland) is a professional tennis player from Switzerland. She has been playing on the WTA tour since the mid-1990s and is a member of the world top ten in the WTA rankings.
In 1996, Schnyder made her Grand Slam debut at the French Open. In 1997, she quickly rose up through the rankings, and by August 1998 she had entered the WTA Top 10. However, she fell out of the Top 10 in April 1999, and spent the next 6 years ranked in the 15-30 range before re-entering the Top 10 in May 2005.
In December 2003, Schnyder married Rainer Hofmann, a German private investigator and information technology specialist who has accompanied her on the WTA tour since 1999 and became her full-time tennis coach in early 2003. Hofmann carries a fraud conviction relating to his business dealings with German national communications firm Deutsche Telekom, a crime for which he was put on probation.
Schnyder has won 10 singles titles, including a victory in Zurich (Tier I Event) over American Lindsay Davenport, and 4 doubles titles. Her first title on U.S. soil came in August, 2005, when she won at Cincinnati's Western & Southern Financial Group Women's Open. Schnyder is perhaps best known for defeating 4 consecutive Top 10 players, including Serena Williams and then-world #1 Jennifer Capriati, in 2002 at the Family Circle Cup in Charleston, which is the largest women-only tennis event held in the United States.
Schnyder has struggled with consistency until the start of 2004 when she unexpectedly has a solid run to the Semi-finals of the Australian Open and reached the semi-finals of two Tier I events Charleston and Zurich.
2005 was Schnyder's best season on the tour to date, reaching a total of five tour finals winning two of them (Gold Coast and Cincinnati). She became runner up at the Tier I events Rome (to Amelie Mauresmo) and Zurich (to Lindsay Davenport). She also reached the final in Linz, falling to Nadia Petrova. She reached the career high of World Number 7 after the end of season WTA Tour Championships. 2006 proved to be a good season for Schnyder also, staying within the top ten and reaching the finals in Charleston (defeating top seed and defending champion Justine Henin Hardenne in the semis and also to end Henin's 27 match winning streak on clay, though lost to Petrova in the final, and in Stanford (falling to top seed and defending champion Kim Clijsters).
source: wikipedia.org

Patty Schnyder