Alize Cornet
Alize Cornet (Alizé Cornet) (born January 22, 1990 in Nice, Alpes-Maritimes, France) is a female tennis player from France. She has a career-high ranking of #20, achieved on May 19, 2008. Cornet also has an extensive juniors record, winning the 2007 Girl's Singles at Roland Garros.
2005-2007
She made her Grand Slam debut at the French Open in 2005 and made it to the second round, where she lost to Amelie Mauresmo. In 2006, she reached the second round again by beating Virginia Ruano Pascual of Spain in the first round. She could not repeat this performance in 2007, as she lost in the first round to Venus Williams 6–4, 6–3. Cornet was defeated in the Wimbledon 2007 qualifying event by Olga Govortsova 7–6(12), 3–6, 6–4, but made it to the main draw as a lucky loser when Li Na of China withdrew. Alize reached the second round before being defeated by the experienced Ai Sugiyama 4–6, 6–0, 6–3. Also in 2007, she won a $50,000 ITF tournament in Dnepropetrovsk, beating Stefanie Vogele 6–4, 6–3 in the final. In the 2007 US Open, Cornet lost to Jelena Jankovic in the 3rd round 6–4, 2–6, 3–6.
2008
Cornet reached 2nd round at Australian Open where she lost to #9 seed Daniela Hantuchova. Over the following months, Cornet experienced a moderate level of success on the main tour, reaching the final in Acapulco and the semi-finals in Amelia Island and Charleston (a Tier I event). Cornet entered the 2008 Rome Masters and beat Vera Dushevina and Francesca Schiavone before stunning World Number 5 Svetlana Kuznetsova 6-2, 6-4. She then defeated world number 7 Anna Chakvetadze 3-6 6-4 6-3, using a great backhand to overpower Chakvetadze. She said afterwards she was spurred on to victory due to Chakvetadze putting her down before the game saying Alize was "a good junior" even though she was No30 in the world at the time. She was furious and it spurred her to victory. She also said about the disliked Chakvetadze "And she doesn’t even say hello. She’s not a nice person." She then reached her first Tier I final, where she lost 6-2 6-2 to Jelena Jankovic.
Due to her great run at Rome, she rose to number 20 in the world and was seeded 19th for Roland Garros. She defeated Julia Vakulenko in the first round 6-4, 7-5 after a stylish display. She then beat clay specialist Gisela Dulko 6-0, 4-6, 6-4 in the second round.
Her record for the year(as of 29th May) stands at 22-11.
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