Bassett Seguso, Carling

Carling's father, John Bassett, was a member of the Canadian tennis team in the 1959 Davis Cup . He also owned the Tampa Bay Bandits football team, which played in the US Football League, and his family was among the co-owners of the NHL Toronto Maple Leafs . His film company made a feature film on the tennis theme "Spring Fever" ( English Spring Fever ), which starred Carling ^[1] .

In 1987, Carling Bassett married American tennis player Robert Seguso and for some time after that she performed under a double surname. In 1988, Robert and Carling had a son, Holden, then in 1991 a daughter, also named Carling, and in 1993, her second son, Ridley. All three children play tennis ^{[2] [3] [4]} .

During her active tennis career, Carling Bassett acted as a model whose photos were included three times in the illustrated calendars issued by the Women's Tennis Association (WTA) ; she later collaborated with a Ford modeling agency . During the years of her sports career, Bassett struggled with anorexia nervosa and bulimia and was even hospitalized at some point. Later, she told how astonished she was when, after she became aware of her problem, young girls came up to her and expressed their admiration for how she lost weight ^[5] .

In 1981 , at the age of 13, Carling Bassett became the champion of Canada among girls on indoor courts. In 1982, she took first place in the world tennis ranking among girls, and also won the adult women's championship in Canada, becoming at 14 the youngest winner. Subsequently, she won the title twice more. In July 1982, she began playing for the Canadian national team in the Federation Cup , winning six matches and losing two on the way to the finals of the comforting World Group tournament, where the Canadians lost to the French . At the end of the year, she won the prestigious Orange Bowl junior tournament in the older age category (under 18 years old) ^[6] .

Having started performing in professional tournaments in December 1982, the very next year, the fifteen-year-old Bassett broke into the world tennis elite. In 1983, she reached the finals of the Women's Tennis Association (WTA) tournaments four times and in one of them, in Hershey (Pennsylvania) , achieved victory. In April, on her way to the finals of the tournament in Amelia Island, she defeated three seeded rivals and lost only to the first racket of the world, Chris Evert . She also reached the fourth round at the Wimbledon tournament , and then to the quarter-finals of the Australian Open . At the end of the season, the WTA called her "Rookie of the Year . " She was also elected "Athlete of the Year" in Canada.

Bassett’s successful performances continued the following year. Although this year she only once, and only in the fall, reached the tournament finals in singles, she showed two of her best results in Grand Slam tournaments , reaching the quarter-finals at the French Open and the semi-finals at Wimbledon. As a result, by early October 1983, she was among the ten strongest tennis players in the world in singles. Immediately after that, in Tampa, she won the first doubles tournament of her career, and then reached the quarter finals in the Australian Open doubles tournament - her best pair result in Grand Slam tournaments in her career.

In 1985, Bassett reached the finals of the doubles tournament twice more and won again in Tampa, where her partner was Gabriela Sabatini . In singles, she reached the semi-finals several times, and in the French Open and US Open entered the fourth round. At the end of this season, she was secondarily recognized as the "athlete of the year" in Canada.

In 1986, Bassett reached the quarterfinals of the French Open and the fourth round at Wimbledon in singles. Both these and several other tournaments were stopped by the best tennis players in the world: Chris Evert, Martina Navratilova , Gana Mandlikova . And in the fall, she was injured, which, together with the subsequent inflammation of the ligament, did not allow her to finish the season.

After the second and last career victory in the WTA singles tournament, won in May 1987 , and reaching the quarterfinals of the World Cup of the Federation Cup with the Canadian team in August of the same year, Carling Bassett-Seguso no longer achieved significant success. At the Olympics in Seoul, she lost in the first place to Natalie Tozia in the first round, and in the pairs with Jill Hetherington she defeated the Argentines Paz and Sabatini, but in the second round they were beaten by Steffi Graf and Claudia Code-Kielsh . The last regular season of her career for Bassett Seguso was the year 1990 , which she completed after Wimbledon. Her best result this year was reaching the quarter-finals of the tournament in Amelia Island, where she, being in the sixth hundred of the rating, beat two seeded rivals and lost only to Olympic champion Steffi Graf . She still returned to the court in the spring of 1992 , and in 1995 and 1996 she played one tournament each, which was allowed by the decision of the organizers. She spent her last match in the second qualifying round of the tournament in Miami in March 1996. Perhaps, in addition to having children, the reason for the early withdrawal from active sports was psychological difficulties, which were reflected in eating disorders , as a result of which by 2000 she weighed 43 kilograms ^[7] . The loss of interest in tennis could be affected by the death of his father in 1986 ^[8] .

After leaving active tennis, Carling Bassett-Seguso, who moved to the United States, worked as a commentator and coach at her own tennis school, and then at the Nick Bolletieri Academy ^[8] . In 1998, she became a member of the Canadian Tennis Hall of Fame, and in 2001, the first tennis player in the Canadian Hall of Fame.

Singles (6)

Victories (2)

Lost (4)

Doubles (3)

Victories (2)

Defeat (1)

• WTA Website Profile
• Profile on ITF website
• Profile on the Federation Cup website

• Canadian Encyclopedia article