Tamira Paszek

Tamira Shelah Paszek (born December 6, 1990 in Dornbirn, Vorarlberg, Austria) is a professional tennis player from Austria. As of July 4, 2011, she is the no.1 ranked tennis player from Austria in the WTA ranking, at No. 41.She was introduced to tennis by her mother, Françoise Paszek, at age four-and-a-half. Her mother is Chilean born, and her father is Ariff Mohamed, who is Tanzanian-born, Kenya-raised and lived in Canada.Both her paternal grandparents are from India. She is currently being coached by Angel Giminez having previously been coached by Larri Passos (former coach of former ATP No.1 Gustavo Kuerten).She started the 2007 WTA Tour at the Australian Open, where she passed qualifications and defeated Top 40 player Séverine Brémond in straight sets in the first round, before losing to No.22 seed Vera Zvonareva.She also participated at the Fed Cup for Austria in 2007. She won her first two matches in the group stage against Australia but lost both her matches in the World Group play-offs against Israel; a singles match against Shahar Pe'er and a doubles match, partnering Melanie Klaffner.Tamira started 2011 ranked No.89 and lost in the first round of Auckland to Sofia Arvidsson. She qualified for Hobart and reached the second round of the main draw before falling to Jarmila Gajdosova. Prior to Wimbledon 2011 Tamira had a standard year before she went on to reach the Quarter Finals of Wimbledon for the first time in her career, defeating world No.7 and 6th seed Francesca Schiavone (her first top 10 win of 2011) in an epic third round match that lasted 3 hours and 42 minutes. Tamira finally prevailed 3–6, 6–4, 11–9 hitting a total of 40 winners to 36 unforced errors. Tamira played Russian Ksenia Pervak in the fourth round. She went on winning, beating Pervak in three sets: 6–2, 2–6, 6–3, reaching the quarterfinals of a Grand Slam for the first time. Tamira played number 4 seed Victoria Azarenka in the Quarter Finals of Wimbledon. The match started on Court 1 but was moved to Centre Court after the first game due to rain. Paszek lost in straight sets 6–3, 6–1.