Karolina Šprem

Personal life

Karolina was born to Gabro and Bozena Sprem in Varazdin, Croatia. She was introduced to tennis by her father at nine years of age. She turned professional in July 2001.

Sprem represented Croatia at the 2004 Summer Olympics held in Athens. She reached the third round in singles and the second round in doubles (with Jelena Kostanic).

On 14 July 2012, Sprem married Lebanese-Greek Cypriot ATP player Marcos Baghdatis at Trakoscan Castle in Croatia. At Wimbledon 2012, as a spectator for Baghdatis' match on Centre Court against Andy Murray, Sprem confirmed that she and Baghdatis were expecting their first child in October 2012. Karolina gave birth to a girl, named Zahara, on 20 October 2012 in Zagreb, Croatia.

2003–2006

Sprem displayed stunning results at the beginning of the 2003 season. Playing on the ITF circuit, she had a record 29-match winning streak from January to March, which earned her four titles at Grenoble, Southampton, Redbridge and Castellon.

Later in the year, she went on to reach two WTA-level finals in Strasbourg and Vienna. She also reached the semifinals of the WTA event in Helsinki, and won the ITF event in Poitiers.

Sprem's career highlight came at Wimbledon 2004, where she was a quarterfinalist. She defeated the then-two-time champion, four-time finalist and world no. 8 Venus Williams en route. Her run was ended by Lindsay Davenport. The umpire of her match against Venus had awarded her an extra point in the second set tiebreak by mistake.

After Wimbledon, Karolina struggled to find her good form she had, losing early in many tournaments. She began training with Borna Bikic.

She rebounded at the Australian Open 2005, where she had a run to the fourth round. In September 2005, at the WTA event in Kolkata, India, she reached the final after a string of good wins. However, she lost the final to Anastasia Myskina.

She made it to round three of Roland Garros 2006.

2007–2009

In late 2007, Sprem announced a permanent split from Bikic and returned to her old coach Ricardo Sanchez. She had to cope with a serious elbow injury, which needed surgery. She was out of the tour for 10 months.

In April 2008, she returned to the pro-tour, winning in Amelia Island over Ai Sugiyama and top-10 player Daniela Hantuchova, before falling to Lindsay Davenport in the third round.

In July, Sprem made the semifinals of a Tier III event in Budapest, eventually losing to Andreja Klepac.

In 2009, Karolina won three big ITF titles in Biberach, Torhout, and Mestre. She also qualified for the Australian Open, losing to Tsvetana Pironkova in the first round.

At the start of 2009, Sprem changed from a Wilson K-factor Blade 98 to a Tecnifibre racquet.

2010–2011

In 2010, she scored one of her biggest wins in years when she defeated 25th seed Anabel Medina Garrigues at the 2010 Australian Open. She followed this up with a tight loss to Australian wildcard Casey Dellacqua.

At the 2010 Open GDF Suez in Paris, Sprem made it through three rounds of qualifying to reach the main draw of the Premier event. In the first round, she defeated Timea Bacsinszky, before losing to sixth seed Shahar Pe'er in the second round.

In January 2011, Sprem went to Australia to begin the new season, where she failed to qualify for the tournaments in Brisbane and Sydney. She received direct acceptance into the main draw of the Australian Open, but was beaten in round one by Chanelle Scheepers.

During the Australian hard-court season, Karolina suffered a left-wrist injury, which forced her to stop competing. She tried playing in April at the tournament in Estoril, Portugal, but was unable to finish her first qualifying match against Heather Watson. This confirmed that the injury was very serious. She has been out of the tour since, and is still recovering.