Ann Devries (born 27 February 1970) is a former professional tennis player from Belgium.

Biography

Devries, a right-handed player, was born in the Flemish city of Bree. She trained in Antwerp from the age of 12, and by 15 was making her debut for the

Belgium Fed Cup team The Belgian women's national tennis team, managed by the Belgian Tennis Federation, has been competing in the International Tennis Federation sanctioned Fed Cup since the very beginning: 1963. It has won the competition once, in 2001. Both Ki ...

. Her match against

Steffi Graf Stefanie Maria Graf ( , ; born 14 June 1969) is a German former professional tennis player. Widely regarded as one of the greatest tennis players of all time, she was ranked world No. 1 for a record 377 weeks and won 22 major singles titles, ...

in the first round of the 1986 Fed Cup was the first appearance of the then West German in the competition. Devries was a member of Belgium's World Youth Cup winning side in 1986 and won the girls' doubles title at the

1987 Australian Open The 1987 Australian Open was a tennis tournament played on grass courts at the Kooyong Stadium in Melbourne in Victoria in Australia. It was the 75th edition of the Australian Open and was held from 12 through 25 January 1987; the first tourname ...

with Nicole Provis. Early in her career, she was in a relationship with top Swedish player

Magnus Gustafsson Magnus Nils Gustafsson (born 3 January 1967) is a tennis coach and former top ten professional tennis player from Sweden. Gustafsson won 14 tour singles titles during his career and finished 15 consecutive seasons within the world's top 100, r ...

. She broke through on the

WTA Tour The WTA Tour is a worldwide top-tier tennis tour for women organized by the Women's Tennis Association. The second-tier tour is the WTA 125K series, and third-tier is the ITF Women's Circuit. The men's equivalent is the ATP Tour. WTA Tour tou ...

in 1987 with singles quarterfinal appearances in four tournaments, at Auckland, Taipei, Singapore and Knokke. These efforts made her the first Belgian woman to reach the world's top 100 in singles. Her best performance came at the

Sofia Open Sofia Open may refer to: * ATP Sofia Open, an ATP 250 Series tennis tournament started in 2016. * Sofia Open (tennis), a defunct Grand Prix tennis event played from 1980 to 1981. {{Disambiguation ...

in 1988 where she made the semi-finals and three months later reached her career best ranking of 77 in the world. She made the third round of the

1990 Wimbledon Championships The 1990 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 104th edition of the Wimbledon Championships and were held ...

as a qualifier. Her run was ended by seventh seed

Katerina Maleeva Katerina Georgieva Maleeva ( bg, Катерина Георгиева Малеева; born 7 May 1969) is a former top 10 Bulgarian tennis player. She won eleven singles and two doubles WTA Tour titles. Her best position in the WTA rankings was ...

. As a doubles player, she peaked at 93 in 1991, and later reached her only WTA Tour final in the doubles at the 1993 edition of the Belgian Open. A hernia injury caused her retirement from professional tennis in 1994. After finishing her Fed Cup playing career with a 12/13 overall record from 15 ties, she returned to captain the team from 2012 to 2016. She has also been the personal coach of several Belgian players, including

Yanina Wickmayer Yanina Wickmayer (born 20 October 1989) is a Belgian professional tennis player. She reached the semifinals at the 2009 US Open, and a career-high WTA ranking of world No. 12, on 19 April 2010. In doubles, she achieved a career-high of world No. ...

WTA career finals

Doubles: 1 (1 runner-up)

ITF Circuit finals

Singles: 4 (1–3)

Doubles: 3 (3–0)

References

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Devries, Ann 1970 births Living people Belgian female tennis players Belgian tennis coaches People from Bree, Belgium Sportspeople from Limburg (Belgium) Australian Open (tennis) junior champions Grand Slam (tennis) champions in girls' doubles