Paola Suárez
Paola Suárez is a retired tennis player from Argentina. She was one of the most prominent women's doubles players throughout the early and mid-2000s, winning eight Grand Slam titles, all of them with Virginia Ruano Pascual, and holding the No. 1 doubles ranking for 87 non-consecutive weeks. She was also a singles top ten player and semifinalist at the 2004 French Open.
Career
Suárez began playing professional tennis at the age of 15. In 1994, she joined the professional tour as a singles player.Suárez won four WTA titles and 12 other minor tournaments. In 2004, she reached her only Grand Slam singles semi-final by defeating the 18th seed and future Wimbledon champion Maria Sharapova, but lost to Elena Dementieva. That year, she reached her highest WTA ranking of No. 9, to become the highest-ranked Argentine women's player since Gabriela Sabatini achieved the No. 3 ranking in 1989. Also in 2004, she won the bronze medal at the Olympic Games in Athens for the women's doubles with Patricia Tarabini. Suárez and Ruano Pascual would end their grand slam season by winning their 3rd consecutive [2004 US Open (tennis)|US Open – Women's doubles|2004 US Open women’s doubles] title, becoming the only team in the Open Era to do so. If fact, individually, they are the only two women in the Open Era who have won 3 consecutive women’s doubles titles at the US Open.
She had success in singles but her best results came in doubles, winning more than half a dozen titles partnering fellow Argentine Laura Montalvo. However Suárez's more long-standing doubles partnership was with the Spaniard Virginia Ruano Pascual, with whom she won 32 of her 39 titles. Besides numerous WTA Tour titles, they won the French Open on four occasions, the US Open three times, and the Australian Open in 2004. Suárez and Ruano Pascual were the No. 1 female pair for three consecutive years after 9 September 2002 and were the WTA Tour Doubles Team of the Year in 2002, 2003 and 2004. They also reached nine straight Grand Slam finals, two short of Navratilova and Shriver's record of eleven.
In 2005, Suárez announced her forthcoming retirement for personal reasons. In June of that year, she underwent a labrum hip clinical intervention, with a recovery time of three to four months. She restarted playing in Sydney in January 2006 with Ruano Pascual, reaching the final, but suffered a calf injury short after. Later that year, she also reached the final of Wimbledon with Ruano Pascual, marking her third appearance in a final there.
Suárez returned to the circuit with a victory over Dinara Safina, ranked No. 15, in the San Diego Open singles tournament.
On 1 September 2007, Suárez retired after losing in the mixed doubles second round at the US Open. She partnered Kevin Ullyett and lost to Jamie Murray and Liezel Huber, 5–7, 4–6. She briefly returned to the WTA doubles tour in 2012, partnering her fellow Argentinian Gisela Dulko. The pair played at the London Summer Olympics but lost in the first round.
In her career, Suárez earned more than $5.2 million, with four singles titles on the WTA Tour, and eight doubles Grand Slam titles.
