Lee Duk-hee (born 13 July 1953) is a 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 from South Korea.

Biography

Lee started in 1973 when she made the second round of the Australian Open, then featured as a doubles player at both the 1973 French Open and Wimbledon Championships. For the rest of the 1970s, she played only representative tennis for South Korea. She was a foundation player in South Korea's Fed Cup team, first featuring in its tournament debut in 1973, with regular appearances from 1976. At the

1974 Asian Games The 7th Asian Games (), also known as Tehran 1974 (), were held from 1 to 16 September 1974 in Tehran, Iran. The Aryamehr Sports Complex was built for the Games. This marked the first time the Asian Games were hosted in the Middle East. Tehran, t ...

, she partnered with Lee Soon-oh to win a silver medal in the women's doubles. She won two gold medals at the

1978 Asian Games The 8th Asian Games (), also known as Bangkok 1978 (), were held from 9 to 20 December 1978, in Bangkok, Thailand. Originally, the host city was Singapore but Singapore dropped its plan to host the Games due to financial problems. Then Islamabad, ...

in both the women's singles and doubles. Relocating to the United States, Lee became the first South Korean of either gender to play professional tennis in 1980. She featured in the singles draw of all four grand slam tournaments in 1980, which was also a first for a Korean. At the 1981 US Open, she lost in the fourth round to Hana Mandlikova after defeating

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and ninth-seed

Virginia Ruzici Virginia Ruzici (born 31 January 1955) is a Romanian former professional tennis player. She won the 1978 French Open – Women's singles, 1978 French Open singles championship. Career Ruzici became a professional tennis player in 1975. One of h ...

. In 1982, she defeated

Yvonne Vermaak Yvonne Vermaak (born 18 December 1956) is a former tour tennis player who represented her native South Africa. Vermaak's best result was reaching the semi-finals of the 1983 Wimbledon Championships, defeating Virginia Wade in the quarter-fina ...

to win the Fort Myers WTA tournament and had a win over

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en route to the quarterfinals of the German Open. She reached her career best ranking of 30 in the world in 1983, which was her final year on the professional tour. This remained the highest rank attained by a Korean female player for 20 years until surpassed by

Cho Yoon-jeong Cho Yoon-jeong (, born 2 April 1979) is a South Korean former tennis player. In her career, she won one doubles title on the WTA Tour, at Seoul in 2004. Her best Grand Slam performance came when she made the third round of the 2005 US Open b ...

WTA Tour finals

Singles (1-0)

References

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Lee, Dukhee 1953 births Living people South Korean female tennis players Asian Games medalists in tennis Asian Games gold medalists for South Korea Asian Games silver medalists for South Korea South Korean emigrants to the United States Sportspeople from North Jeolla Province Tennis players at the 1974 Asian Games Tennis players at the 1978 Asian Games Medalists at the 1974 Asian Games Medalists at the 1978 Asian Games 20th-century South Korean sportswomen