Vijaya, Angelique

Angelique Vijaya, the daughter of Rico Vijaya and Hanita Erwin, was the youngest of six children in the family and the only daughter. She loudly declared herself in junior tournaments, at the age of 16 becoming in 2001 the first representative of Indonesia, who managed to win the Wimbledon tournament , defeating Dinara Safina in the finals of the single player tournament. The following year, she added to this title the title of winner of the Australian Open in the women's doubles (with Hisela Dulco ) and the winner of the French Open in the singles (after defeating Ashley Harkleroad in the final) ^[1] .

Already in these years, Angelique began to achieve success in adult tennis. At 16, taking the 579th place in the ranking and receiving a wild card in Bali to participate in the first WTA tournament in her career, she unexpectedly became a champion - the sixth in history when a tennis player won her first WTA tournament ^[2] and the lowest rating in history winners of the WTA tournament (not counting the few tennis players who won tournaments, not having a rating at all) ^[1] . On the way to the title, she outplayed the 29th racket of the world, Thai Tamarin Tanasugarn , and two more rivals from the top hundred. In April 2002, in Bol (Croatia), she won her first WTA doubles title. In summer, he already entered the hundred of the strongest tennis players in the world, and in November in Pattaya she won her second WTA tournament in singles after winning the semi-final over the 24th racket of the world Tatyana Panova and ended the season in 69th place in the ranking ^[3] . In the Federation Cup, she held seven games for the Indonesian national team in a round-robin tournament of the Asian-Pacific Group I, having won seven victories, and only in the final match with the Chinese women did she lose to Zheng Jie . She also won the Asian Games gold medal in Busan with the Indonesia team, and became second in doubles with Wine Prakusi ^[4] . In 2002, she was recognized in Indonesia as the athlete of the year ^[2] .

In 2003, Vijaya entered the final of the WTA doubles five times a year, including the first category tournament in Toronto , although she managed to win only once - in her homeland in Bali, paired with Venezuelan Maria Vento-Kabchi . With Wento-Kabchi, she also reached the quarterfinals of the Wimbledon tournament (after defeating seeded sixths Elena Dokic and Nadezhda Petrova ) and the US Open . By November, Angelique was among the 20 strongest tennis players in the world in doubles. In singles, she managed to save a place in the first hundred, although she never made her way to the finals. In the category I tournament in Indian Wells, she defeated the most titled of her rivals until this time - the 13th racket of the world Patti Schnyder . For the second year in a row in the Federation Cup, she led the team to the finals of the Asian-Pacific Group I and this time brought the matter to victory, having won against her last year-old offender Zheng Jie, and - with Vinnaya Prakusey - a pair match with future Olympic champions Li Ting and Sun Tiantian . In a transitional match for the right to speak next year in the World Group, she fought the Germans by taking two points, but Indonesia eventually lost with a score of 2-3.

The following year, Angelique rose in the ranking to the highest career position in the 15th position after reaching the quarterfinals of the Australian Open (also with Vento Cabchi, with which they were already seeded at number six). However, in the future she failed to achieve successes equal to last year's, she never reached the final in the WTA tournaments, and her best result for the rest of the season was the exit from Wento Kabchi to the second consecutive quarterfinals at Wimbledon, where they lost to the first pair of the tournament - Virginia Ruano and Paole Suarez . To this success, she added a similar achievement at the French Open in mixed doubles , where her partner was Argentinean Lucas Arnold-Kerr . In the second round, he and Arnold-Kerr beat six-seeded Martin Navratilova and Leander Paes , but in the quarter-final they were stopped by future winners Tatyana Golovin and Richard Gaske ^[5] . Another important achievement was related to the Federation Cup: in July, Angie, who played only in pairs in a round-robin tournament, and then brought two points to the team in the match with New Zealands in the final of the Asia-Pacific group, almost completely defeated Slovenia in the playoffs of the World Group having won all three of his games, and brought Indonesia to the World Group the following year. In August, she took part in the Athens Olympics , where the Croatian Carolina Sprem , who defeated her in the first round in doubles and in the second in singles, became her stumbling block twice.

At the end of 2004, Angelique underwent a left knee operation, which made her miss the next season. Returning to the court in 2006 , she spent one full, albeit not too successful season (the best results are the semi-finals of ITF singles in Melbourne and the Italian cities Galatina and Grado in singles and one title in pairs at a tournament of a similar level in Jakarta in pairs). After that, she no longer performed in singles and played very little in pairs ^[6] , until in 2008, in less than 24 years, she announced the end of her career. After the performance, she became an employee of the Sportama sports agency ^[7] , and in 2010 opened a tennis school in Jakarta ^[6] with her former coach Deddy Tejamukti.

Singles (2)

Victories (2)

Doubles (6)

Victories (2)

Defeats (4)

• Profile on the WTA website (English)
• Profile on the Federation Cup website