Deshi, Natalie

Natalie is one of the three children of the French Canadian Francoise Descha (physical education teacher) and French Michel Descha (mathematics teacher). Her older brother's name is Nicolas, and her younger sister is Isabel. The whole family plays tennis: at some point the father of the family tried to work as a tennis coach.

September 24, 2005 Frenchwoman married Antoine Metra-Devallo. On January 25, 2010, the couple had a firstborn, a son, Lucas.

Natalie has been in tennis since she was 6 years old. On the court, she prefers to act at the back line. Favorite coverage is hard, the best element of the game is a blow above your head.

Individual Tournaments

Early years

Since junior years, Deshi was considered one of the hopes of national tennis: in 1996-97 she reached the decisive stages of Grand Slam tournaments in this age category three times, playing equally well on her native French soil and on Australian hard and British grass. Its best tournament in this period becomes the 1996 Australian Open . where she defeated compatriot Amelie Mauresmo in the quarterfinal, but lost in the title match to the Polish girl Magdalena Grzybowski .

The first experiments of Natalie’s games in the professional round begin in 1994: in her first tournament she reaches the final, and by the fourth she earns the right to take a place in the single-player rating. A year later, she is gaining sufficient stability of results in order to rise to the number of the three hundred strongest tennis players in the world; On Roland Garros, the National Federation, satisfied with its progress, gives her the right to play in the main draw of both the single and double tournaments (and there and there everything was limited to one match, but in a pair Natalie and Amelie Mauresmo could win the set from the fifth pair of that tournament - American Patti Fendik and Mary-Jo Fernandez ).

The successes of 1995 allowed us to make a qualitative leap in results for the next year and break through to the first hundred of the rating: from the very first tournaments the Frenchwoman outlined plans for qualitatively different results: at the Australian Open she stopped a step away from the ground, and at the next tournament - the hall competition in Paris - with a margin won back for the failure, leaving the qualification in the quarterfinal of the base, simultaneously beating Lori Macnil and Nathalie Toziu and losing only to the first racket of the tournament Ive Maioli . These successes allowed the Frenchwoman to rise to the top of the second hundred rankings, but they could not continue such results - the decision to play a series of WTA tournaments in the spring gave additional experience of playing against strong rivals, but almost did not bring points. In late May, Natalie won her first victory in the main draw of the Grand Slam, beating Jeanette Gusarova in her native Parisian courts. Until the end of the year, Deshi, due to local success, enters and is fixed in the first hundred of the rating. At the end of the season, another quarter-final of the WTA tournament was won - Japanese Nana Miyagi stood in her way in Indonesian Surabaya .

In 1997, we managed to hold positions in the single ranking, and in a pair of Deshi twice was close to the WTA finals: in Strasbourg, she and Lea Girardi were stopped in the semi-finals of Ai Sugiyama and Elena Likhovtseva , and in Surabaya at the same stage, Natalie and Sarah Pitkovski outplayed Kerry -Ann Guus and Rika Hiraki . A year later Deshi manages to make the following qualitative leap in single results: at Roland Garros, she breaks into the third round of the Grand Slam for the first time, and three months later - at the US Open - for the first time to play in the fourth round of such competitions. At the end of the year, the Frenchwoman was able to shine on less powerful tournaments: first reaching the semifinal of the WTA competition in Quebec City , and then winning the 50,000th in Sergy-Pontoise . This entire series of successes allowed Natalie to finish the year at Top50.

1999–2009

In 1999, the Frenchwoman added more stability - from the first tournaments she began to beat the neighbors in a single rating and gradually rose to Top30, managing to become seeded at the Grand Slam home tournament. A year later - during the winter hall series - Natalie reached the WTA Tournament Finals for the first time: losing in the finals of the single tournament in Oklahoma to Monica Seles ; Later, Deshi will be noted at this stage several more times, but his only title will be won only in January 2003 - in Gold Coast .

In 2000, the first major victories in the pair Grand Slam tournaments gradually came: at Roland Garros , along with Amelie Costie , the quarterfinal was won (along the way, the 11th seeded Manon Bollegraf / Nicole Arendt was beaten). This result was soon repeated at Wimbledon , which eventually allowed Natalie to finish the year for the first time among the one hundred strongest doubles in the world. A year later, Deshi first appeared in the WTA pair competition finals - together with Meulen Tu, the French lost the title match in Bratislava . In the future, the pair will play three more times in the finals of the WTA tournaments , winning only one title - at the hall tournament in Paris in February 2002.

In the singles, Natalie was able to gain a foothold in the first fifty and retained these positions until almost the end of her career. A series of local bursts of results at major tournaments (which included the only semifinal in the career of the Grand Slam tournament - at the Australian Open - 2005 ) allowed Deshi to climb the best position in her career in the ranking, becoming the 11th racket of the world.

In the doubles, the French gradually also increasingly attracts attention, but for the time being everything is limited to single victories in particular matches, or titles in secondary competitions. Notable successes occur in 2006–07: in alliance, first with Vera Zvonareva , and then with Dinara Safina , for two years in a row she has no equal in the US Open . In the mixed doubles, the alliance with Andy Ram shows his high competitiveness: the couple repeatedly reaches the decisive stages of Grand Slam tournaments, including twice fighting in a title match and winning one winning cup.

In 2009, the single results gradually slipped and by the second half of the season Deshi had real chances to leave the first hundred of the rating. Assessing your desire to go to small tournaments and get out again at the first fifty, Natalie chose to complete her playing career. In recent years, Natalie's career successfully played in doubles with Italian Mara Santangelo : in 2007, the girls won the title together in Rome , and in 2009 reached the finals of four tournaments and went to the semifinals of the Australian Open . After completing his career, Deshi, Santangelo also did not last long on tour, soon ending his career due to permanent injuries.

Career in the national team and in national tournaments

Natalie debuted in the national team in the Federation Cup in 2000, in the World Group Tournament group match of the tournament against the Australian team . Natalie used her chance by beating Nicole Pratt in three sets. In the future, the coaching council annually invited Deshi to the matches of this tournament, giving her a total of 32 games in 18 match meetings. In these games, a native of Guadeloupe scored 17 victories (13 - in singles). In 2003-05, the French women, with the support of Natalie, played three times in the final of the tournament and won one title.

In 2009, Deshi completed a career in the national team. In their last match, Natalie and Amelie Mauresmo won the decisive doubles game of the match against Slovakia for the right to stay the next year in the highest group of the tournament.

Twice Deshi won the right to represent France in the tennis tournaments of the Olympiad : in 2000, she participated only in a single tournament, having passed two rounds and lost to Monica Seles ; four years later, Natalie took part in both singles and doubles - in both competitions her path ended after matches with Paola Suárez : in solo, this happened at the start, and in a couple of ways the French and Argentine crossed in the third round: Natalie and Sandrine Testiou for this, they had to outplay the first seeded tournament pair of that tournament - Russians Svetlana Kuznetsova and Elena Likhovtseva .

• Thanks to her parents, Natalie had dual French-Canadian citizenship, but at competitions she always performed under the French flag.
• Deshi is one of the 1979 generation of French tennis players who have achieved significant success. Of her yearling, Amelie Mauresmo , Ann Gael Sido and Emily Lua are well known.

• Profile on the WTA website (English)
• Profile on the ITF website
• Profile on the Federation Cup website (eng.)