Tara Moore

Tara Shanice Moore (born 6 August 1992) is a Hong Kong-born British former tennis player.

She achieved career-high rankings by the WTA of 145 in singles and No. 77 in doubles.

In her career, she won nine singles titles and 17 doubles titles on the ITF Circuit.

As a junior, she was coached by the American tennis coach, Nick Bollettieri.

In September 2006, he referred to Moore as one of the best young players in his school, the Bollettieri Tennis Academy, along with Michelle Larcher de Brito.

Her coach was Charles Homewood.

Her favourite surface is stated as being grass although most of her titles to date have come on hardcourt.

Moore's first professional tennis match came in August 2006 at the $10k tournament in Guayaquil, Ecuador.

She won two matches to qualify before losing in the first round of the tournament.

Moore then moved on to qualify and reach the quarterfinals in only the second ITF tournament of her career in Caracas, Venezuela, another $10k event.

In 2007, Moore reached the quarterfinals of another $10k event in Irapuato before losing to Ana Clara Duarte of Brazil, in straight sets.

In July, she entered her first $25k tournament in Felixstowe, England, where she lost in the qualifying stages.

Her next two tournaments were both $10k events in England (Ilkley and Wrexham) and she managed to reach the quarterfinal stages of both of these.

She ended the year with three consecutive first-round losses at $25k events.

Her year-end ranking for 2007 was world No. 823.

April and May resulted in three failures to qualify for ITF tournaments, two of which were $25k events, the other a $50k event.

She became a quarterfinalist yet again in her next tournament, the $10k in Izmir, Turkey.

She then began a successful grass-court season with a wildcard into the qualifying tournament of Wimbledon where she lost in the first round in a valiant three-set battle against former top-40 player Olga Puchkova of Russia.

She followed this up immediately with her first ever semifinal in the $25k tournament held in Felixstowe and continued the momentum in the following tournament ($10k Frinton) where she won, beating fellow teenager Mona Barthel of Germany in the final.

Her next noteworthy result of 2008 came on the ITF Circuit in early November at the $10k event in Sunderland, England.

She won through two tough three-set matches in the first and second rounds before winning her quarterfinal match in two sets and coming up against Laura Robson, in one of two all-British semifinals.

She lost in straight sets to Robson (who was the eventual champion).

Immediately after this was the $10k tournament in Jersey.

In the second round of this tournament, she played a rematch of her second-round match in the previous tournament in Sunderland.

She beat Tetyana Arefyeva in three sets for the second time in two weeks to reach the quarterfinal stage where she was beaten by Katarzyna Piter.

She ended season with a singles ranking of world No. 712.

Moore struggled throughout the year and did not go beyond the quarterfinals in any of the events she competed in.

She enjoyed a straight-sets win over former top-20 player Eleni Daniilidou as she qualified for the $50 event in Nottingham.

She also competed at the ITF junior events at Roehampton and Wimbledon but lost early in both events as she was drawn against junior world No. 3, Tímea Babos.

Post Wimbledon, Moore's best result was qualifying for a $75k event in Shrewsbury before losing to Angelique Kerber.

Moore was also asked to leave the Lawn Tennis Association (LTA) National Tennis Centre (NTC) as a result of her perceived lack of professionalism and poor attitude.

She would end the year in India before heading back to Hong Kong.

New season started very much as 2009 ended for Moore with early losses in her first handful of events.

She was training and working out of Hong Kong, following her expulsion from the LTA although in March, Moore began working with British tennis coach John Morris who was also the coach of Tímea Babos, ranked a lowly 790 on the WTA rankings, Moore moved back to Britain to train at Gosling Tennis Academy under the watchful eye of John Morris.

Her results started to pick up in spring time of 2010 as she reached the final of a $10k event in Edinburgh, losing to stable mate Tímea Babos, following this up with her first career top-100 win at the $50k event in Nottingham, beating Chang Kai-chen in three tough sets.

During the grass-court season, Moore represented Great Britain in the Maureen Connolly trophy, a sign that the LTA were beginning to see the improvements in Moore both on and off court.

This was quickly followed by a wildcard into the ITF junior event at Roehampton where Moore beat world junior No. 1, Daria Gavrilova, 6–0, 6–1, before beating the 2010 Australian Open junior champion, Karolína Plíšková, 6–3, 6–1.

But Moore found Karolina's twin sister Kristýna Plíšková too hot to handle as Plíšková achieved a rare double of winning both titles at Roehampton and Wimbledon.

On to Wimbledon, Moore had some impressive wins and reached her first Grand Slam quarterfinal where she played fellow Brit Laura Robson and despite controlling much of the match, Moore lost in two sets although she put herself firmly on the tennis map during the grass-court season and credited John Morris for much of the improvements.

Post Wimbledon, Moore won her second career title at a $10k event in Chiswick, as well as her first ITF doubles title, alongside Francesca Stephenson, at a $25k in Wrexham, beating Sania Mirza and Emma Laine in the final.