Tamira Paszek

Tamira Shelah Paszek (born 6 December 1990) is an Austrian tennis player.

Paszek has won three singles titles on the WTA Tour, as well as six singles and four doubles titles on the ITF Women's Circuit.

As a junior, Paszek was a girls' singles finalist at the 2005 Wimbledon Championships and the 2006 US Open.

In September 2005, she won her first title at an ITF tournament in Sofia.

In October of the same year she received a wildcard to appear at her first WTA tournament in Linz; she defeated Elena Vesnina in the first round and lost to Ana Ivanovic after a tough first set.

In 2006, she passed qualifying in Istanbul, where she lost in the second round to Catalina Castaño; and in Portorož at the Slovenia Open, where she won her first WTA Tour title by defeating No. 6 seed Maria Elena Camerin, in straight sets.

That was her career-first singles title in only her third main draw.

It made her the youngest singles titlist in 2006 and the seventh-youngest of all time, the youngest winner being Tracy Austin.

A month later, at the Zurich Open, she lost to Camerin in the second round of qualifying.

She finished 2006 as world No. 181 in the WTA rankings.

Paszek started at the Australian Open, where she qualified for the main draw and defeated top-40 player Séverine Brémond in straight sets in the first round, before losing to No. 22 seed Vera Zvonareva.

After her loss to Li Na in the second round of the Miami Open, Paszek broke into the top 100.

At the French Open, she was defeated by Justine Henin in the second round.

At Paszek's first grass tournament of her career, she reached the third round in Birmingham, losing to Maria Sharapova in a tight match.

At Wimbledon, she reached the fourth round after beating two seeded players, No. 17 seed Tatiana Golovin and No. 12 seed Elena Dementieva; she then eventually lost to No. 5 seed Svetlana Kuznetsova, in straight sets.

The win pushed her up 19 places to No. 35, a career high and only a few spots from a guaranteed seeding at the US Open.

Paszek also played for Austria Fed Cup team, and 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 debuted on the US Open, reaching the fourth round, beating the No. 24 and No. 11 seeds, Francesca Schiavone and Patty Schnyder, on the way.

She lost to the sixth seed, Anna Chakvetadze.

Paszek decided against defending her title at the Slovenia Open, in favour of the China Open tournament in Beijing.

However, she lost in the second round to fourth-seeded Elena Dementieva (whom she beat in Wimbledon) in less than an hour.

At the Auckland Open, Paszek made it to the semifinals, losing to veteran Lindsay Davenport.

In the first round of the Australian Open, Paszek played third-seeded Jelena Janković.

In the deciding set, Paszek led by two games and had three match points before Janković came back to win the three-hour match.

Following this she lost in the first round of Doha to Patty Schnyder.

Then she competed for the first time as a seed in a Tier I tournament at Indian Wells retiring in the third round to Casey Dellacqua.

Then in Miami she was defeated by Anna Chakvetadze in the second round.

This started a losing streak of six straight matches running through the French Open and Wimbledon.

At Wimbledon she lost her second marathon match of the year to Francesca Schiavone.

It came to an end in Los Angeles where she defeated Aiko Nakamura only to lose to Flavia Pennetta in the second round.

On 31 July, Paszek beat world No. 1, Ana Ivanovic, in the third round of the Rogers Cup in Montreal in three sets.

In the quarterfinals, she played Victoria Azarenka, to whom she lost.

In the first round of Cincinnati, she lost to Petra Cetkovská.

She realized her greatest success so far when she reached quarterfinals of a Grand Slam tournament twice, 2011 and 2012 at the Wimbledon Championships.

On 11 February 2013, she reached her best singles ranking of world No. 26.

On 6 May 2013, she peaked at No. 93 in the doubles rankings.

In her career, Paszek has defeated top-ten players Marion Bartoli, Elena Dementieva, Daniela Hantuchová, Ana Ivanovic, Jelena Janković, Angelique Kerber, Flavia Pennetta, Francesca Schiavone, Patty Schnyder, and Caroline Wozniacki.

Paszek was introduced to tennis by her mother, Françoise Paszek, at age four-and-a-half.

Her mother is a Chilean-born Austrian of Polish and French descent; and her father, Ariff Mohamed, a Tanzanian-born, Kenyan-raised Canadian of Indian descent.

Tamira has a Polish surname from her maternal grandfather.