Corina Maria Morariu (born January 26, 1978) is an American former professional
tennis
Tennis is a List of racket sports, racket sport that is played either individually against a single opponent (singles (tennis), singles) or between two teams of two players each (doubles (tennis), doubles). Each player uses a tennis racket st ...
player.
Morariu (pronounced: mo-RA-R'ju) was born in
Detroit
Detroit ( , ) is the List of municipalities in Michigan, most populous city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is situated on the bank of the Detroit River across from Windsor, Ontario. It had a population of 639,111 at the 2020 United State ...
,
Michigan
Michigan ( ) is a peninsular U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest, Upper Midwestern United States. It shares water and land boundaries with Minnesota to the northwest, Wisconsin to the west, ...
and is of
Romanian descent. She turned professional in 1994. Mainly known as a
doubles specialist, she won the women's doubles title at
Wimbledon
Wimbledon most often refers to:
* Wimbledon, London, a district of southwest London
* Wimbledon Championships, the oldest tennis tournament in the world and one of the four Grand Slam championships
Wimbledon may also refer to:
Places London
* W ...
in 1999 with
Lindsay Davenport
Lindsay Ann Davenport Leach (born June 8, 1976) is an American former professional tennis player. She was ranked as the world No. 1 in women's singles by the Women's Tennis Association (WTA) for 98 weeks (including as the year-end No. 1 four ...
. She also won the mixed-doubles title at the
2001 Australian Open with
Ellis Ferreira. She reached the
Australian Open
The Australian Open (stylized ΛO) is a tennis tournament organised by Tennis Australia annually at Melbourne Park in Melbourne, Victoria (state), Victoria, Australia. It is chronologically the first of the four Grand Slam (tennis), Grand Sl ...
women's doubles final with Davenport in 2005. She also reached the world No. 1 ranking in doubles in 2000.
In 2001, Morariu was diagnosed with
leukemia
Leukemia ( also spelled leukaemia; pronounced ) is a group of blood cancers that usually begin in the bone marrow and produce high numbers of abnormal blood cells. These blood cells are not fully developed and are called ''blasts'' or '' ...
and began a program of
chemotherapy
Chemotherapy (often abbreviated chemo, sometimes CTX and CTx) is the type of cancer treatment that uses one or more anti-cancer drugs (list of chemotherapeutic agents, chemotherapeutic agents or alkylating agents) in a standard chemotherapy re ...
.
During this time,
Jennifer Capriati dedicated her 2001 French Open victory to Morariu. After recovering from cancer, along with shoulder surgery, Morariu was largely restricted to doubles play.
[ The WTA then created the Corina Comeback Award, which was presented to Morariu by Capriati.]
Morariu retired from the tour in 2007. She is an International Sports Ambassador for The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, and has released a memoir titled ''Living Through the Racket: How I Survived Leukemia...and Rediscovered My Self''.[ Following her retirement, she began working as a commentator for Tennis Channel.]
Grand Slam finals
Doubles: 3 (1 title, 2 runner-ups)
Mixed doubles: 1 (title)
WTA Tour finals
Singles: 4 (1–3)
Doubles: 20 (13–7)
ITF Circuit finals
Singles (5–0)
Doubles (9–4)
Doubles performance timeline
Awards
* The Corina Comeback Award (established by the WTA and named after her; she was the first recipient)[
* The 2002 WTA Tour Comeback Player of the Year Award][
]
References
Publications
*
External links
*
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Morariu, Corina
1978 births
Living people
American female tennis players
Australian Open (tennis) champions
Tennis players from Boca Raton, Florida
American people of Romanian descent
American tennis commentators
Tennis players from Detroit
Wimbledon champions
French Open junior champions
US Open (tennis) junior champions
Australian Open (tennis) junior champions
Grand Slam (tennis) champions in women's doubles
Grand Slam (tennis) champions in mixed doubles
Grand Slam (tennis) champions in girls' doubles
American memoirists
American women memoirists
21st-century American women
WTA number 1 ranked doubles tennis players