Timea Bacsinszky

Personal life

Bacsinszky, who first picked up a racket at age 5, was pushed hard to succeed in youth tennis by her father Igor, tennis coach from Romania. She has stated that she resented him for this and remains estranged from him after her parents divorced, though she still developed a passion for competitive tennis. Her mother, Suzanne, is a dentist from Hungary. Her father, Igor Bacsinszky, is part Polish and her mother Suzanne is Hungarian with Austrian roots. She has one brother, Daniel, a music teacher and member of The Evpatoria Report, and two sisters, Sophie (musician and student) and Melinda. While growing up, Bacsinszky idolized Monica Seles.

Bacsinszky roots for her hometown ice hockey team, Lausanne HC.

2004–10

Bacsinszky's early tennis highlights included reaching the semifinals of three junior Grand Slam tournaments in 2004–05. Her breakthrough professional tournament was the 2006 Zurich Open, where she qualified then defeated Anastasia Myskina and Francesca Schiavone before losing to former No. 1 Maria Sharapova. Her early years on tour were a learning experience, and she finished both 2006 and 2007 ranked in the 120s.

Her singles ranking climbed in 2008, and she finished in the top 60 three straight years. The breakthrough was reaching the semifinals of the Diamond Games in February, winning three qualifying and several main draw matches before losing to world No. 1 Justine Henin in three sets. She won her first WTA singles title at the 2009 Luxembourg Open then won her first three doubles titles the following year.

2011–14

Bacsinszky suffered a serious foot injury in the spring of 2011, requiring surgery and a long recovery. She returned at the Fed Cup the following February then used her protected ranking to play several WTA tournaments. She also played a number of ITF Women's Circuit events. However, she decided to skip the Olympics for personal reasons and soon took a hiatus from tennis altogether. She ended up working in restaurants and bars while preparing to attend hotel management school.

In May 2013 Bacsinszky received an email stating she was eligible to compete in that month's French Open qualifier. With no practice and having to take time off work, she drove from Lausanne to Paris; she lost her first match but felt her passion for the game reignited. Thus she hired Dimitri Zavialoff, former coach of compatriot Stan Wawrinka, and committed herself to reviving her tennis career. Her gradual return to the WTA Tour reached a big milestone at the 2014 Wuhan Open when she upset No. 4 Maria Sharapova in the third round. A few weeks later she won her fourth career doubles title.

2015: Breakthrough season, first Premier Mandatory final, Top 10 debut and First Major SF

Bacsinszky began the year in Shenzhen, upsetting No. 4 Petra Kvitová in the semifinal before losing to No. 3 Simona Halep in her first WTA final in five years. She then reached the third round of the Australian Open followed by back-to-back titles in Mexico at Acapulco and Monterrey, beating Caroline Garcia in both finals. As a result, her ranking rose into the top 30 for the first time. She continued this good form at the Indian Wells Premier Mandatory, defeating No. 8 Ekaterina Makarova en route to the quarterfinals where she lost to No. 1 Serena Williams, thereby ending her win streak at a career-best 15 matches.

At the French Open she advanced past the third round of a Grand Slam for the first time, once again upsetting Kvitová. She made it all the way to the semifinals and a rematch with No. 1 Williams; Bacsinszky led by a set and a break but lost the last 10 games. Then after making the quarterfinals of Wimbledon her ranking rose to 13.

The U.S. hard court season however saw unstable results of the Swiss, falling in the first round of all four tournament she entered, including losing to Barbora Strýcová in her opening match at the US Open. Entering the China Open in poor form, Bacsinszky beat Italian Camila Giorgi, qualifier Mariana Duque-Marino, and three former top-10 players including Carla Suárez Navarro, Sara Errani and Ana Ivanovic to advance her first ever premier mandatory final where she lost to Garbiñe Muguruza in straight sets. Her run to the final put her in the top 10 in the WTA Rankings for the first time.

She lost out on her run to the 2015 WTA Finals, however, because the last tournament she played (Luxembourg) held its final on Saturday and the points could not count for the race. She withdrew from the 2015 WTA Elite Trophy due to a left knee injury that had already forced her retirement in her first round match in Luxembourg. After the end of the season, Bacsinszky received the WTA's Most Improved Player Award, ending the year No.12 in the ranking.

2016: 4th WTA title; Olympic silver medal in doubles

Bacsinszky's first two tournaments both ended in defeats as she lost to Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova and Anna Karolina Scmiedlová at the Brisbane International and at the Sydney International, respectively. Her next tournament was the Australian Open, where she beat Katerina Siniakova but lost to Annika Beck. At the Fed Cup, Bacsinszky lost both of her matches in Switzerland's tie against Germany, but these losses didn't do any harm to Switzerland who beat Germany in the doubles. She then withdrew from the Dubai Tennis Championships. At the Qatar Open, Bacsinszky defeated Bethanie Mattek-Sands and Yulia Putintseva before losing to eventual champion Carla Suárez Navarro. However, Timea was not able to defend her back-to-back title in Acapulco and Monterrey from 2015 as they were set in the same dates as the aforementioned tournaments.

In March, Bacsinszky reached fourth round at Indian Wells beating Tsvetana Pironkova and Eugenie Bouchard respectively, but lost to Daria Kasatkina subsequently. She then made a surprising semifinal run at Miami Open, beating Agnieszka Radwanska and Simona Halep, two top 5 players, back-to-back. She lost to Svetlana Kuznetsova in straight sets in the semifinal.

At the clay season, Bacsinszky won her fourth WTA title in Rabat, losing only 1 set in the tournament. She re-entered top 10 at the week of Monday, May 9. She made the quarter-finals at Rome (losing to Garbine Muguruza) and reached her highest career ranking at No. 9. At French Open, she beat Silvia Soler-Espinosa, Eugenie Bouchard, Pauline Parmentier and Venus Williams en route to her second straight quarterfinal, but lost to the unseeded Kiki Bertens.

Coming to the grass season, Bacsinszky played Eastbourne but knocked out by the in-form Kiki Mladenovic in straight sets. At Wimbledon, she started her campaign by beating qualifier Luksika Kumkhum in the first round and set up a rematch of last year's fourth round match against Monica Niculescu. Similar to last year, Timea turned the match around with a come back win by winning 6 games in a row in the last set. However, she lost in straight sets to the eventual quarterfinalist Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova. She then reached the semifinals of the inaugural Ladies Championship Gstaad, losing to Kiki Bertens.

At the 2016 Summer Olympics, Bacsinszky suffered a shocking first round loss in the hands of China's Zhang Shuai; however, partnering with Martina Hingis for the first time ever in the doubles tournament, Bacsinszky earned her first olympic medal, as they beat Daria Gavrilova/Samantha Stosur of Australia, Bethanie Mattek-Sands/Coco Vandeweghe of the United States, Chan Hao-ching/Chan Yung-jan of Taipei and Andrea Hlavackova/Lucie Hradecká of Czech Republic en route to the final where the pair lost to Ekaterina Makarova/Elena Vesnina of Russia. They become the first two Swiss female tennis Olympic medalists.

Post-Olympic saw Bacsinszky lack of deep runs in tournaments including round two loss to Varvara Lepchenko in three tight sets in US Open and exited second round of China Open, where she was runner-up the previous year. However due to her strong first half of the season, Timea qualified for Elite Trophy in Zhuhai. At the last event of the season, she lost to Zhang Shuai in straight sets in one of the two round robin matches, but concluded the season with straight win against Timea Babos. She ended the season ranked No.15.

2017: Second Major Semifinal

Bacsinszky skipped the first two weeks' tournaments of the season in Shenzhen and Sydney due to injury. With no warm up match before Australian Open, she matched her best result at this tournament with a third round, losing to Daria Gavrilova in three sets. Entering Fed Cup as the Swiss No.1, Bacsinszky won both of her rubbers against French player Alize Cornet and Kristina Mladenovic. With injuries carried on from Fed Cup, Bacsinszky had to retired first round of Doha and eventually withdrew from Dubai, the first Premier 5 event of the year. The Swiss however reached second week of Indian Wells in third consecutive year, only to retired against Karolina Pliskova due to wrist injury. She also had to withdrew from Miami Open, where she was a semifinalist from the previous year. At Fed Cup semifinal against Belarus, Bacsinszky beat Aryna Sabalenka but lost to Aliaksandra Sasnovich, and Switzerland eventually lost to Belarus 2-3 at this round.

Coming into clay season with little tournaments played from the first quarter of the season, Bacsinszky struggled to go deep in different events including lost to Cici Bellis at Rabat as the defending champion; 2nd round at Madrid lost to Kiki Bertens; and Karolina Pliskova at 3rd round of Rome. The Swiss however did upset the reigning French Open Champion Garbine Muguruza in first round of Madrid, her first top 10 win of the season and first win against the Spaniard.

At Roland Garros, Bacsinszky defeated Spaniard Sara Sorribes Tormo, Tunisian lucky loser Ons Jabeur and American Madison Brengle before beating 2017 Australian Open's runner-up Venus Williams in three sets to qualify for the quarterfinals. Bacsinszky then defeated home favourite Kristina Mladenovic but lost in the semifinal match against eventual champion Jelena Ostapenko from Latvia.

Bacsinszky reached third round of Wimbledon, lost to Agnieszka Radwanska after leading a set. She but suffered from a quadriceps pain during the match. She later missed the US Open due to an injury at her left wrist.

Sponsors

Bacsinszky uses Babolat racquets and Asics clothes, having her apparel previously supplied by Lacoste and her shoes supplied by Nike. She is also an ambassador for Japanese car manufacturer Honda.

Grand Slam tournament performance timeline

Current through 2017 Australian Open.