Rittner, Barbara

Barbara is one of the two daughters of Karl and Mehtild Rittner. Her sister's name is Zuzana.

In the family, no one else does tennis so seriously, the German father is a pharmacist, and his sister is an employee of one of the German television channels.

In early 2000, Barbara married her physical training coach, Michael Diel.

Rittner has one pet - the German Shepherd Junior.

Personal tournaments

At the turn of the 1980s and 1990s, Barbara spent several successful years in junior tennis: many times reaching the decisive stages of Grand Slam tournaments, she was able to win two titles, having won a single prize at Wimbledon - 1991 , and a little earlier - at the Australian Open of the same years, along with Slovak Karina Gabshudova , won the doubles title.

In parallel with performances in competitions among senior juniors, Rittner gradually began to take part in competitions of the professional tour. By August 1989, the German woman was playing the minimum number of competitions to get the first adult rating. In October, she is allowed to take part in the qualification of a home tournament in Filderstadt , and a month later - at a tournament in Morocco - Barbara wins her first professional title. In the first half of 1990, Rittner superstably holds a series of ITF tournaments and by the April tournament in Hamburg is among the two hundred strongest single tennis players in the world. A few weeks later, the German woman for the first time takes part in the qualification of the Grand Slam tournament - in France - and immediately reaches the final of the selection. Until the end of the year, the German is assigned to Top200.

Next year, she will make her debut in the main draw of the Grand Slam tournament in Australia , having won the match right away. In the next few weeks, Barbara successfully holds two tournaments in New Zealand , after which she enters and enters into Rambler's Top100. In the autumn, there is another sharp rise in the ranking - Rittner reaches the third round at the US Open , plays in the final of the competition in St. Petersburg , and also gets to the quarterfinal stage of tournaments in Leipzig and Puerto Rico . This series allows her to enter the Top50 singles classification by the end of the year. In 1992, the position can be further improved - the German regularly enters the late stages of the WTA competitions, is one of the thirty strongest tennis players in the world and wins her first victory in association tournaments, winning the competition in Schenectady .

Paired to a good level and paired results. In 1992, several tournaments were successfully held with Bulgarian Katerina Maleeva . The girls got a few finals and won the tournament in Essen .

Over the next few years, results will stabilize at the mid-first player level. Barbara regularly beats the players from the second and third tens of the rating, but is not stable enough to achieve anything more. Gradually, the results are declining and by the end of 1997 she was forced to include ITF competitions in her calendar, and more and more have to play qualifying tournaments at WTA competitions. In May 1998, she even leaves for several weeks, but quickly returns, successfully playing the European soil series.

In the doubles in 1993-99, Rittner continued to perform stably. Got several finals of the WTA tournaments . Successfully developing cooperation with Florencia Labat , Dominic van Rost and Kveta Grdlichkova .

Gradually, German women are increasingly worried about health problems, because of which they have to give up games for a long time. So in 2000, the next departure from the first hundred of the rating was the result of a three-month pass of the competition. At the US Open of that year, for the first time in a long time, she was forced to play qualifiers at the Grand Slam tournament.

Barbara quickly overcame all the downturns and for the time being confidently returned to her position in the ranking after all the problems. In 2001, another peak of the form successfully fell on the tournament in Antwerp - Rittner interrupted her more than nine-year series without titles and won the local competition.

In mid-2002, cooperation with Grdliczkova reached its peak. The German woman reaches the finals of five association tournaments, wins a couple of titles and rises to the 23rd line of the doubles rating.

In 2003, the results began to fall again. Several attempts to interrupt the unsuccessful series did not lead to improvement, and by the end of 2004, Barbara gradually completed her solitary career. A pair career lasts a little longer.

National team games

In 1992, Rittner represented Germany in the solo tournament of the Barcelona Olympics. Barbara went a couple of laps, losing in the 1/8 finals to Aranche Sanchez-Vicario .

In 1991-95, 1997, 2000-04, a German was called up for the national team in the Federation Cup . During this time, 40 matches were played in 29 meetings. Barbara is the leader of the team by the number of years in the tournament when she participated in at least one match.

In 1992, she played for the champion team, winning one match during that tournament. In the early 2000s, in connection with a small crisis in national tennis, Barbara was often the main support of the team: in 2002, she brought Germany all three victory points in the match with the Russian team , beating both Anastasia Myskina and Elena Dementieva , ^{[2 ]} and a couple of years later repeated this result in a match with the Ukrainian team . ^[3]

Coaching career

Having completed his playing career, Rittner became a coach, moving to work in the national tennis federation. In parallel, she was appointed to the position of team captain in the Federation Cup .

• Barbara is one of the women's single tennis record holders during the Open Era in terms of the length of the unbeaten run between two titles: Rittner's victories at the tournaments in Schenectady and Antwerp have been divided for almost ten years.

• Official website (German)

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