Julie Halard-Decugis (born 10 September 1970) is a French 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.

Tennis career

Halard-Decugis lived in

La Baule La Baule-Escoublac (; Gallo language, Gallo: ''Écoubiâ'', , ), commonly referred to as La Baule, is a communes of France, commune in Loire-Atlantique, a departments of France, department in Pays de la Loire, western France. History Seaside re ...

, France, during the initial stages of her career and later moved to Pully, Switzerland. She turned professional in 1986. She won the

French Open The French Open (), also known as Roland-Garros (), is a tennis tournament organized by the French Tennis Federation annually at Stade Roland Garros in Paris, France. It is chronologically the second of the four Grand Slam (tennis), Grand Slam ...

junior singles title in 1988 and was the Wimbledon junior singles runner-up in 1987. She retired from the WTA Tour tennis circuit at the end of the 2000 season. Her highest WTA Tour singles and doubles rankings was number seven and number one respectively. She had been coached by Arnaud Decugis since 1989. Halard-Decugis won her first WTA Tour singles title in Puerto Rico. She enjoyed her best season in 1996, when she won her first WTA Tour Tier II singles title in Paris and finished the year with a career-high season-ending singles ranking of No. 15 and as the No. 1 singles player from France. This occurred despite the fact that her playing schedule in the second half of 1996 was curtailed because of a wrist injury sustained during the Fed Cup semifinal match against Spain. She only played two tournaments in late 1997 because of injuries. By winning the singles title in Rosmalen in 1998, she became the 20th player to have won singles titles on all four surfaces in the Open Era. Halard also won the singles and doubles titles in Pattaya that year, and broke into the top 10 singles ranking in August 1999, becoming the fifth Frenchwoman after Françoise Dürr, Mary Pierce, Nathalie Tauziat and Amélie Mauresmo to do so. In 1999, she won WTA Tour singles titles in

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and

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and was runner-up on three other occasions. Between 15 November 1999 and 9 January 2000, Julie Halard, Nathalie Tauziat, Amélie Mauresmo and Mary Pierce were all ranked inside the singles top 10, the first time France had four players ranked among the singles top 10. 2000 was to be the final and perhaps the finest year of Halard's professional playing career. She reached the Australian Open singles quarterfinal for the second time, captured the second WTA Tour Tier II title of her career in Eastbourne and reached her career-high singles ranking of No. 7 in February. Halard was also runner-up in Tokyo's Princess Cup in October and won the doubles title with Ai Sugiyama. The following week, she won both the singles and doubles titles at the Japan Open in Tokyo, saving three match points in the final to defeat the defending champion Amy Frazier. On her 30th birthday, Halard won the 2000 US Open women's doubles title with Ai Sugiyama, her only Grand Slam title as a professional. The pair also reached the final at Wimbledon, the semifinal at the

and the quarterfinal at the Australian Open that year. Halard-Decugis won nine other doubles titles in 2000, five of them with Sugiyama, and became the first Frenchwoman to attain the No. 1 doubles ranking in the Open Era. Halard-Decugis represented her country in the Federation Cup Fed Cup from 1990 to 2000 and in the

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in 1992 and 2000.

Personal life

She married her coach, Arnaud Decugis, on 22 September 1995. Arnaud Decugis is the great nephew of Max Decugis, a leading tennis player from France during the early 20th century. The couple have three children

Grand Slam finals

Doubles: 2 (1 title, 1 runner-up)

WTA career finals

Singles: 21 (12 titles, 9 runner-ups)

Doubles: 25 (15 titles, 10 runner-ups)

ITF Circuit finals

Singles: 2 (2–0)

Doubles: 4 (2–2)

Grand Slam performance timelines

Singles

Doubles

Head-to-head records

* Arantxa Sánchez Vicario 4—8 * Dominique Monami 2—2 *

Serena Williams Serena Jameka Williams (born September 26, 1981) is an American former professional tennis player. She was ranked as the List of WTA number 1 ranked singles tennis players, world No. 1 in women's singles by the Women's Tennis Association (WT ...

0—4 * Martina Hingis 0—5 * Venus Williams 1—1 * Anna Kournikova 1—1 *

Elena Dementieva Elena Viacheslavovna Dementieva (, ; born 15 October 1981) is a Russian former professional tennis player. She was WTA rankings, ranked world No. 3 in women's singles and world No. 5 in women's doubles by the Women's Tennis Association, WTA. Dem ...

1—0 * Jelena Dokic 1—0 *

Steffi Graf Stefanie Maria Graf ( , ; born 14 June 1969) is a German former professional tennis player. She was ranked as the List of WTA number 1 ranked singles tennis players, world No. 1 in women's singles by the Women's Tennis Association (WTA) for a r ...

1—9 * Lindsay Davenport 2—9 * Mary Pierce 3-0

References

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Halard-Decugis, Julie 1970 births French expatriate sportspeople in Switzerland French female tennis players French Open junior champions Hopman Cup competitors Living people Olympic tennis players for France Sportspeople from Loire-Atlantique People from Lavaux-Oron District Sportspeople from Versailles, Yvelines Tennis players at the 1992 Summer Olympics Tennis players at the 2000 Summer Olympics US Open (tennis) champions Grand Slam (tennis) champions in women's doubles Grand Slam (tennis) champions in girls' singles WTA number 1 ranked doubles tennis players ITF World Champions 20th-century French sportswomen