Mirjana Lučić-Baroni

1999: Wimbledon semifinal, personal problems In 1999, Lučić achieved her career-best Grand Slam singles performance when she reached the semifinals at Wimbledon, before losing in three sets to Graf. She beat Erika deLone and Mariana Díaz Oliva before she beat world No. 4 and nine-time Grand Slam champion Monica Seles in the third round. She saw off Tamarine Tanasugarn and then beat 1998 Wimbledon finalist Nathalie Tauziat in the quarterfinals, after Tauziat served for the match twice in the third set.

After 1999, Lučić suffered a series of personal and financial problems and failed to make any further significant impact on the tour. She said that she had been abused by her father, Marinko, from early childhood. She continued to compete until the 2003 US Open, then proceeded to take an extended hiatus from competition; her career-high rankings were world No. 32 in singles and No. 19 in doubles (both achieved in 1998). She played only two tournaments in the 2004, 2005, and 2006 seasons combined.

2007–08: Return to tour Lučić gave an interview in the New York Daily News in April 2006, explaining why she stopped playing and describing her life with an abusive father, vowing that would not stop her and she would continue to fight to the end. She had been training with a new coach, Ivan Beroš, and said she was fit and ready to continue tennis.

As a wildcard in the qualifying draw of the Cellular South Cup in Memphis in February, Lučić won one match (defeating Melanie Oudin) before losing in the second round to Natalie Grandin. She was also awarded a wildcard to the Indian Wells Open in March, where she again won her first match before losing in the second round.

She also received a wildcard to the Tiro A Volo tournament in Rome, where she lost in the first round to Karin Knapp. That was her third tournament within the previous 12 months, and she received her first WTA ranking (No. 524) since her return to the professional tour.

Even though she lost the first round to Knapp in the $100k Rome Challenger, she received a qualifying wildcard for the WTA Tour tournament in May at the same city and beat the 65th-ranked player in the world, Elena Vesnina. She then went on to lose to Catalina Castaño in the second round. Her ranking fell to 444 with the result.

Lučić played a mixture of ITF and WTA qualifiers in 2008, her best result reaching the quarterfinals in Florence in May. In September 2008, Mirjana started working with her new coach Alberto Gutierrez, planning to play a full schedule the following year.

2009–11 In the 2009 season, she was given a wildcard into the Auckland Open in New Zealand. In her first WTA Tour main-draw match since 2007 Indian Wells, she lost to Anne Keothavong in the first round.

Lučić then continued to toil on the ITF Circuit for several years prior to mounting somewhat of a comeback in the 2010 season. During that year, Lučić won her first title in 12 years at a $25k event in Jackson, Florida on 11 April. Shortly after, Lučić qualified for the WTA event in Birmingham, going on to win her first main-draw match since 2007 in Indian Wells, this time over Colombian Mariana Duque. She continued her good form as she defeated fellow Croatian player Karolina Šprem in the second round. She was beaten by top-20 player Aravane Rezaï of France in the third round. Lučić then competed in the Wimbledon qualifying tournament in Roehampton. She won her first two rounds and beat Michaëlla Krajicek in the third round to qualify for the main draw of Wimbledon, her first Grand Slam since the 2002 US Open. After a good showing, she fell to 14th seed Victoria Azarenka in the first round on centre court.

After Wimbledon, Lučić moved onto the European summer clay-court events. She failed to qualify for the Swedish Open in Båstad but the following week came through three rounds of qualifying at Palermo event, and won her first round match, defeating Pauline Parmentier recovering from a 0–4 third set deficit and saving three match points. She then fell to third seed Sara Errani in the second round recovering a 2–4 deficit to force a tie-break before falling 0–6, 6–7. Her ranking rose to No. 151.

Following Palermo, Lučić returned to the United States for the summer hard-court season. Her first event was the Premier event in Stanford, the Silicon Valley Classic. Seeded fifth in the qualifying draw, Lučić defeated both Heidi El Tabakh and Tamaryn Hendler in straight sets, before repeating her Wimbledon victory over Michaëlla Krajicek with a straight-sets win to qualify for the main draw where she lost to Maria Kirilenko.

In the US Open, after winning three qualifying matches to enter the main draw, she beat Alicia Molik to set up a second round clash with No. 4 seed Jelena Janković. Lučić lost in three sets. Even with this defeat, this was her best performance in a Grand Slam championship for nearly a decade.

Lučić started out the 2011 season poorly with a string of early losses on both the WTA Tour and ITF Circuit early in the year. Her fortunes began to change during the clay court season where Lučić reached her first tour quarterfinal in over ten years at the Strasbourg event, losing to Anabel Medina Garrigues. She married restaurateur Daniele Baroni in December 2011.

2012 Lučić-Baroni began the new season losing in qualifying at Brisbane and Sydney in January. She also failed to qualify for the Australian Open. She struggled to find her form, losing early at the tournaments in Midland and Memphis, as well as the Premier line-up events of Indian Wells, Miami and Charleston. She also lost in the first round at Roland Garros to Svetlana Kuznetsova.

Lučić-Baroni had a breakthrough run at Wimbledon, reaching the third round as a qualifier. She stunned ninth seed Marion Bartoli en route to the second round. However, her run was ended by Roberta Vinci in a tight match.

2014: US Open fourth round, first titles in 16 years At the Wimbledon Championships, Lučić-Baroni faced former No. 1 Victoria Azarenka in the first round but lost to the Belarusian in straight sets, after having set points in the second set.

A few weeks later, a resurgent Lučić-Baroni made major waves at the US Open. She defeated No. 25 seed Garbiñe Muguruza in the first round, and Shahar Pe'er in the second round to gain a berth in the third round for the first time since 1998. She then pulled off a huge upset, stunning second-seed Simona Halep in straight sets to win a spot in the round of 16—the best result of her career at this tournament, and her best showing at a Grand Slam since reaching the semifinals at Wimbledon in 1999. She went on to lose this round to 13th seed Sara Errani in three sets.

However, only two weeks later, she entered the Quebec City event and reached the singles final, where she pulled off another major upset by beating Venus Williams on 14 September, setting a record for the longest gap between titles in WTA history, as her previous win happened 16 years and four months earlier at the 1998 Bol Ladies Open. In addition, paired with Czech player Lucie Hradecká, she won the doubles final of the tournament on the same day.

2015–16

In 2015, Lučić-Baroni had a second consecutive finish in the top 100 of the WTA rankings, ending the season ranked No. 67. Her best performance was reaching the semifinals in Québec City, losing to sixth seed and eventual champion Annika Beck in three sets.

In 2016, she reached the final at the Internationaux de Strasbourg, where she lost in straight sets to 10th seed Caroline Garcia.

2017: Australian Open semifinal and career-high ranking Entering ranked 79 in the world at the Australian Open, Lučić-Baroni defeated Wang Qiang, third seed Agnieszka Radwańska, Maria Sakkari, qualifier Jennifer Brady and fifth seed Karolína Plíšková to make her first Australian Open semifinal and her first semifinal appearance at a major since for 18 years ago. She lost in the last four to six-time champion and second seed Serena Williams.

In March, as top seed she reached the semifinals at the Abierto Mexicano retiring due to illness, after losing the first five games of her match against seventh seed and eventual champion Lesia Tsurenko.

The following month at the Charleston Open, Lučić-Baroni made it through to the semifinals, at which point she was defeated by Jeļena Ostapenko in three sets.

On 1 May, she entered the WTA top-20 for the first time.

2018 At the Brisbane International, Lučić-Baroni lost in the second round to Alizé Cornet. Seeded 28th, she defeated Shelby Rogers in the first round at the Australian Open, before losing to Aliaksandra Sasnovich.

2021: Comeback plans In March 2021, Lučić-Baroni announced her continued plans for a comeback in order to conclude her career on her own terms.

Performance timelines

Win–loss includes only WTA Tour and Grand Slam tournaments main-draw results.

Singles

Doubles

Grand Slam finals Doubles: 1 (title) ResultYear Championship Surface Partner Opponents ScoreWin 1998Australian Open Hard Martina Hingis Lindsay Davenport Natasha Zvereva 6–4, 2–6, 6–3

Mixed doubles: 1 (runner-up) ResultYear Championship Surface Partner Opponents ScoreLoss 1998Wimbledon Grass Mahesh Bhupathi Serena Williams Max Mirnyi 4–6, 4–6

WTA Tour finals Singles: 5 (3 titles, 2 runner-ups) Legend Tier I / Premier M & Premier 5 Tier II / Premier Tier III, IV & V / International (3–2)Finals by surfaceClay (2–2)Carpet (1–0)

Doubles: 4 (3 titles, 1 runner-up) Legend Grand Slam tournaments (1–0) Tier I / Premier M & Premier 5 (1–0) Tier II / Premier (0–0) Tier III, IV & V / International (1–1)Finals by surfaceHard (1–0)Clay (0–1)Carpet (2–0)

ITF Circuit finals $100,000 tournaments $75,000 tournaments $50,000 tournaments $25,000 tournaments $10,000 tournaments

Singles: 7 (4–3) OutcomeNo.DateTournamentSurfaceOpponentScoreRunner-up 1. 15 December 1996 ITF Salzburg, Austria Carpet (i) Chanda Rubin 1–6, 2–6Runner-up 2. 22 June 1997 ITF Marseille, France Clay Amelie Cocheteux 6–4, 5–7, 4–6Winner 1. 3 August 1997 ITF Makarska, Croatia Clay Sandra Dopfer 6–1, 6–4Runner-up 3. 1 November 2009 ITF Bayamón, Puerto Rico Hard Rossana de los Ríos 3–6, 4–6Winner 2. 11 April 2010 ITF Jackson, United States Clay Jamie Hampton 7–5, 6–3Winner 3. 26 September 2010 ITF Albuquerque, United States Hard Lindsay Lee-Waters 6–1, 6–4Winner 4. 13 October 2013 ITF Joué-lès-Tours, France Hard (i) An-Sophie Mestach 6–4, 6–2

Doubles: 3 (3–0) OutcomeNo.DateTournamentSurfacePartnerOpponentsScoreWinner 1. 15 December 1996 ITF Salzburg, Austria Carpet (i) Chanda Rubin Adriana Barna Anca Barna 6–3, 6–2Winner 2. 4 November 2012 ITF New Braunfels, United States Hard Elena Bovina Mariana Duque Mariño Adriana Pérez 6–3, 4–6, [10–8]Winner 3. 10 February 2013 Midland Classic, United States Hard (i) Melinda Czink Maria Fernanda Alves Samantha Murray 5–7, 6–4, [10–7]

Head-to-head records Record against top 10 players