Rachel Viollet (born 11 February 1972) is a former ranked professional British

tennis Tennis is a racket sport that is played either individually against a single opponent ( singles) or between two teams of two players each ( doubles). Each player uses a tennis racket that is strung with cord to strike a hollow rubber ball c ...

player and film producer. She played collegiate tennis for the

Miami Hurricanes The Miami Hurricanes (known informally as The U, UM, or The 'Canes) are the intercollegiate sports teams that represent the University of Miami in Coral Gables, Florida. The Hurricanes compete in Division I of the National Collegiate Athletic A ...

at the

University of Miami The University of Miami (UM, UMiami, Miami, U of M, and The U) is a private research university in Coral Gables, Florida. , the university enrolled 19,096 students in 12 colleges and schools across nearly 350 academic majors and programs, ...

Coral Gables, Florida Coral Gables, officially City of Coral Gables, is a city in Miami-Dade County, Florida. The city is located southwest of Downtown Miami. As of the 2020 U.S. census, it had a population of 49,248. Coral Gables is known globally as home to the ...

Biography

Viollet, who was born in Manchester, has lived in the United States since the age of two. She is the daughter of

Dennis Viollet Dennis Sydney Viollet (20 September 1933 – 6 March 1999) was an English footballer who played for Manchester United and Stoke City as well as the England national team. He was famous as one of the Busby Babes and survived the Munich air disa ...

, a

Manchester United Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of City of Salford, Salford to ...

footballer who was a member of the famed

Busby Babes The "Busby Babes" were the group of footballers, recruited and trained by Manchester United F.C. chief scout Joe Armstrong and assistant manager Jimmy Murphy, who progressed from the club's youth team into the first team under the management of ...

and a survivor of the Munich air disaster. Much of her childhood was spent in

Jacksonville, Florida Jacksonville is a city located on the Atlantic coast of northeast Florida, the most populous city proper in the state and is the List of United States cities by area, largest city by area in the contiguous United States as of 2020. It is the co ...

, where her father coached football. Her early appearances on the WTA Tour came at the

Amelia Island Championships The Amelia Island Championships was a women's tennis tournament held in Amelia Island Plantation and later Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida, United States. The Women's Tennis Association event was an International series tournament played on outdoor g ...

in Florida. She featured in the doubles main draw on three occasions. From 1991 to 1995 she studied at the

, which kept her away from the tour. As a member of the collegiate tennis team she had her best season in 1995 when she was the "

Big East The Big East Conference is a collegiate athletic conference that competes in NCAA Division I in ten men's sports and twelve women's sports. Headquartered in New York City, the eleven full-member schools are primarily located in Northeast and M ...

Player of the Year", made the quarter-finals of the NCAA Championships, and finished the season as the #4 ranked singles player in the nation. She graduated in 1995 with a film production degree. She played as a qualifier in the main draw of the singles at the 1995 Amelia Island Championships. At the

1996 Wimbledon Championships The 1996 Wimbledon Championships was a tennis tournament played on grass courts at the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club in Wimbledon, London in the United Kingdom. It was the 110th edition of the Wimbledon Championships and was held ...

she received a wildcard into the singles main draw. She defeated fellow British wildcard Megan Miller in the first round, then was beaten by 16th seed

Martina Hingis Martina Hingis (, sk, Martina Hingisová; 30 September 1980) is a Swiss former professional tennis player. Hingis is the first Swiss player, male or female, to win a major title and attain a world No. 1 ranking. She spent a total of 209 weeks ...

in the second round. In 1996 Viollet was the number one ranked female British professional tennis player. Viollet continued playing on the tour until 1997, then took time away to look after her father, who was suffering from brain cancer. In 2000 she returned to tennis and featured mainly on the ITF circuit. In 2002, at the age of 30, she debuted for the

Great Britain Fed Cup team The Great Britain Billie Jean King Cup team represents the United Kingdom in Fed Cup tennis competition and are governed by the Lawn Tennis Association. In 2020, they lost out on a chance to secure a place at the inaugural Billie Jean King Cup f ...

. She played two matches, both wins, over Malta's Sarah Wetz in singles and partnering

Lucie Ahl Lucie Ahl (born 23 July 1974 in Exeter, Devon) is a tennis coach and a former professional tennis player. She was briefly the British No.1, holding the position for 9 non-consecutive weeks between 30 July 2001 and 5 May 2002. She reached her hi ...

in doubles against Norway. In June that year she made her second Wimbledon appearance. She lost to

Magdalena Maleeva Magdalena Georgieva Maleeva ( bg, Магдалена Георгиева Малеева, ; born 1 April 1975) is a Bulgarian former professional tennis player. She played on the WTA Tour competing in singles and doubles, from April 1989 to Oct ...

in the first round of the singles and also featured in the women's doubles with

Anne Keothavong Anne Viensouk Keothavong (born 16 September 1983) is a retired British tennis player. During her career, she won a total of 28 titles on the ITF Women's Circuit, and reached a career-high singles ranking of world No. 48 (achieved on 23 Febru ...

. The University of Miami inducted Viollet into its Sports Hall of Fame in 2007. In 2016, Viollet released the documentary “

: A United Man”, which premiered on Manchester United Television Network. The film tells the story of her father, a

soccer player who survived the Munich air-crash and moved to America in the 1960s, where he helped pioneer professional soccer.Dennis Viollet: A United Man review – Manchester United survivor turned American pioneer, The Guardian
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ITF finals

Singles (1-1)

Doubles (1–1)

References

External links