Pauline Parmentier

Pauline Parmentier (; born 31 January 1986) is a French former tennis player.

Her career-high WTA singles ranking is 40, which she attained on 21 July 2008. On 30 April 2012, she peaked at No. 89 on the WTA doubles rankings. She won four singles titles on the WTA Tour, as well as ten singles and three doubles titles on the ITF Women's Circuit. She competed in the singles and women's doubles events at the 2008 Summer Olympics, and had been playing for France in the Fed Cup since 2010, with a win–loss record of 7–14. Parmentier retired following the 2020 French Open.

Personal life Parmentier was born in the northern French town of Cucq to Dominique and Jean-Philippe. She has two older brothers named Olivier and Julien. Pauline began playing tennis at age six and trained for five years at the Mouratoglou Tennis Academy.

Career

2000–2003 In 2000, Parmentier played only one tournament on the ITF Women's Circuit; she lost her main-draw opening match in both the singles and doubles events of a $10k tournament held in November in the French commune of Villenave-d'Ornon.

In 2001, she played just three ITF tournaments (in Villenave-d'Ornon, Le Havre and Deauville – all held in November, $10k each) and only took part in their singles events; she was eliminated in the qualifying rounds of all three.

2010 Parmentier made her Fed Cup debut at the World Group quarterfinal tie against the team of the United States in February 2010. She lost her first match against Melanie Oudin but won her second against Christina McHale by the same scoreline. France lost the tie 1–4.

Parmentier qualified for the singles main draw of the Miami Open by defeating American teenager Lauren Davis and Tamarine Tanasugarn in the qualifying rounds; in the main draw, she beat Sybille Bammer before losing to No. 25 seed Ana Ivanovic in the second round.

2012 In late May, the unseeded Parmentier upset the top seed Sabine Lisicki (who was then ranked world No. 12 in the singles ranking) in the first round of the Internationaux de Strasbourg. She then defeated Stéphanie Foretz in the second round and Alexandra Panova in the quarterfinals to reach her first WTA Tour singles semifinal since winning the title in Bad Gastein; she lost her semifinal to her compatriot and unseeded wildcard Alizé Cornet in three sets.

At the US Open, as an unseeded player, Parmentier defeated No. 25 seed Yanina Wickmayer in the second round before losing to No. 5 seed Petra Kvitová in the third; it was the first time that she had advanced to the third round of the main draw in a Grand Slam tournament.

2013 In 2013, Parmentier won only one match (Auckland, held in the first week of January) and exited the first round nine times in ten singles main-draw events, including the Australian Open, French Open and Wimbledon. She missed several events in April and May because of a right shoulder injury. In the second half of the year, she played the singles events of eleven tournaments (ten of those on ITF level), including the US Open qualifying event.

2016 In the first five months of 2016, Parmentier reached at least the last eight of the singles main draw in four WTA Tour tournaments as a lucky loser, unseeded player or wildcard; she lost to No. 8 seed, Dominika Cibulková, in the semifinals in Katowice (that was her first singles semifinal appearance on the WTA Tour since the 2012 Internationaux de Strasbourg) and was defeated in the singles quarterfinals in Monterrey, Rabat and Strasbourg. She also lost in the third round of the Miami Open (the next Premier Mandatory tournament) to world No. 11, Johanna Konta, after causing an upset by beating No. 24 seed Tímea Babos in the second round.

After her good performances at Indian Wells and Miami, Parmentier lost in the first round of her next four tournaments – Biel, Rabat, Madrid and Strasbourg. At Strasbourg, she failed to convert two match points while leading 6–5 in the final set against the American qualifier Madison Brengle. She ended her run of four consecutive singles main-draw first-round defeats at the French Open when she defeated Irina Khromacheva, before losing to Carina Witthöft in the second round.

In July, she reached her second Tour singles quarterfinal of the year at the tournament in Bucharest, where she eliminated No. 5 seed, Elise Mertens, in the second round before losing her quarterfinal match against No. 7 seed, Irina-Camelia Begu. In her third-last event of the year in Luxembourg, Parmentier won three qualifying and three main-draw matches to reach her first and only singles semifinal of the 2017 WTA Tour, where she lost to Carina Witthöft in three sets (it was Witthöft's third straight win over Parmentier). In November, Parmentier narrowly failed to qualify for her first WTA 125 singles final when she was beaten in three sets in the semifinals by Monica Niculescu at the Open de Limoges. However, she reached her first career WTA 125 doubles final at Limoges; she and her partner Chloé Paquet lost in the final to Valeria Savinykh and Maryna Zanevska.

2018: Two more career singles titles ten years after her last one In the first 15 weeks of the year, Parmentier compiled a singles match record of two wins and 13 defeats. During that period, she won her first-round match but lost her second-round match in the singles main draw events at the Taiwan Open and in Croissy-Beaubourg. She registered eleven other singles defeats during that period by losing both her matches in the Fed Cup World Group quarterfinal tie against Belgium on 10–11 February, and her opening matches at seven WTA Tour tournaments (Shenzhen, Hobart, Australian Open, Budapest, Acapulco, Indian Wells and Miami) and two ITF tournaments (Andrézieux-Bouthéon and Tunis). She then defeated the No. 7 seed, Irina-Camelia Begu, in the semifinals to reach her first WTA Tour singles final since winning the 2008 Gastein Ladies title. In the final, she defeated the unseeded Polona Hercog to win her third career singles title. On 30 April, the day after winning the Istanbul Cup singles title, Parmentier rose from No. 122 (seven days earlier) to world No. 76 in the singles rankings.

She lost in the first and second round in her next two tournaments, in Cagnes-sur-Mer and Strasbourg, respectively. She entered the main draw of the French Open as a wildcard, and defeated Chloé Paquet (another French wildcard) and Alizé Cornet (seeded No. 32) in the first and second rounds, respectively, both in three sets. She lost to second seeded Caroline Wozniacki in the third round. Parmentier played only one pre-Wimbledon grass-court tournament in June, in Southsea, where she was defeated by Kirsten Flipkens in the semifinals. Parmentier lost her opening matches in her next two tournaments (Wimbledon Championships and Contrexéville Open) to Taylor Townsend and Zheng Saisai, respectively. Parmentier entered the Bucharest Open as the No. 7 seed and defeated Alexandra Dulgheru in three sets. In her second-round match against Wang Yafan, Parmentier was trailing 6–7, 0–3 when she was forced to retire because of a neck injury. The following week in Moscow, she was beaten in the first round by third-seeded Anastasija Sevastova. Parmentier entered the main draw of the New Haven tournament as a lucky loser, losing in the first round to Anett Kontaveit. She lost her opening matches in her next two tournaments (US Open and Chicago Challenger) to Madison Keys and Dayana Yastremska, respectively.

Parmentier won the title at the Tournoi de Québec in September, defeating qualifier Jessica Pegula in the final.

Performance timelines

Only main-draw results in WTA Tour, Grand Slam tournaments, Fed Cup and Olympic Games are included in win–loss records.

Singles

Doubles

WTA Tour finals Singles: 4 (4 titles) LegendGrand Slam tournamentsPremier M & Premier 5Premier (0–0)International (4–0)Finals by surfaceHard (1–0)Grass (0–0)Clay (2–0)Carpet (1–0)

Doubles: 1 (runner–up) LegendGrand Slam tournamentsPremier M & Premier 5Premier (0–0)International (0–1)Finals by surfaceHard (0–1)Grass (0–0)Clay (0–0)Carpet (0–0)

WTA Challenger finals Doubles: 1 (runner–up) ResultW–LDateTournamentSurfacePartnerOpponentsScoreLoss 0–1 Open de Limoges, France Hard (i) Chloé Paquet Valeria Savinykh Maryna Zanevska 0–6, 2–6

ITF Circuit finals Singles: 25 (10 titles, 15 runner–ups) Legend$100,000 tournaments$75,000 tournaments$50,000 tournaments$25,000 tournaments$10,000 tournamentsFinals by surfaceHard (3–6)Clay (7–9)

Doubles: 5 (3 titles, 2 runner–ups) Legend$50,000 tournaments$25,000 tournaments$10,000 tournamentsFinals by surfaceHard (0–0)Clay (3–2)

Top-10 wins per season Season 20182019TotalWins 1 1 2 PlayerRankEventSurfaceRdScore20181. Caroline WozniackiNo. 2Istanbul Cup, TurkeyClayQF4–6, 6–3, ret.20192. Elina SvitolinaNo. 6Madrid Open, SpainClay1R6–4, 7–6(8–6)

Fed Cup participation