Mary Pierce

Mary Caroline Pierce (born 15 January 1975) is a retired tennis professional who represented France internationally in team competitions and the Olympics.

She was born in Canada to an American father and a French mother, and holds citizenship of all three countries.

Pierce won four Grand Slam titles: two in singles, one in doubles and one in mixed doubles.

Following this split from her father, Pierce was coached by Nick Bollettieri, whose tennis academy she had briefly attended as a teenager in 1988.

In April 1989 at a WTA tournament in Hilton Head, Pierce became the youngest American player (prior to Jennifer Capriati in 1990) to make her debut on the professional tour, aged 14 years and 2 months.

Due to her physicality and aggressive approach, her ballstriking was compared to that of Capriati, and she quickly gained a reputation for being one of the hardest hitters on the women's circuit.

Her dad developed an interest in the sport, and became her coach for many years.

She won her first WTA Tour singles tournament in July 1991 in Palermo by defeating Sandra Cecchini in the final.

In July 1993, Pierce successfully filed for a restraining order against her father, who was known to be verbally abusive to his daughter and her opponents, and was banned by the WTA from attending her tournaments.

Pierce reached her first Grand Slam singles final at the 1994 French Open.

She conceded just ten games en route to the final, which included a 6–2, 6–2 defeat of world No. 1, Steffi Graf, in the semifinals.

In the final, however, Pierce lost to Arantxa Sánchez Vicario in straight sets.

Her Grand Slam singles titles came at the 1995 Australian Open and the 2000 French Open; Pierce is the most recent French player, male or female, to win the latter title.

The following year, Pierce won her first Grand Slam title for France by defeating Sánchez Vicario in straight sets in the final of the 1995 Australian Open and lost just 30 games in the whole tournament in becoming the first Canadian-born tennis player to win a singles Grand Slam.

She reached her career-high singles ranking of world No. 3 that year.

Pierce also won the Japan Open, defeating Sánchez Vicario in the final.

Pierce suffered a series of setbacks in 1996, including her split with Nick Bollettieri, after failing to defend her title at the Australian Open.

Aside from a runner-up finish at the Bausch & Lomb Championships in Amelia Island and a semifinal finish in Hamburg, the highlight of the year for Pierce was her first appearance in the Wimbledon quarterfinals.

Pierce was back in the Australian Open singles final in 1997, where she lost to Martina Hingis in straight sets.

She also lost in that year's WTA Tour Championships final to Jana Novotná.

Pierce was briefly engaged to baseball player Roberto Alomar in 1999 and later to Air France pilot David Emmanuel Ades, but broke off both engagements.

Pierce had a difficult relationship with her father, who developed a reputation as an abusive tennis father, threatening and even attacking her as well as others.

Pierce refused to speak with him for a while and even employed two bodyguards to keep him at bay —and the Women's Tennis Association introduced the "Jim Pierce rule" that made it possible to ban parents and coaches from tournaments— but later, the two were eventually reconciled sometime after she retired from active professional tennis.

Pierce is a born again Christian.

She won the doubles event at the 2000 French Open with Martina Hingis as her partner, and reached an additional Grand Slam women's doubles final at the 2000 Australian Open, also partnering Hingis.

After a loss in early months of 2000 (before the French Open which she would win), she said she felt "empty and miserable", but then "I gave my life to Jesus and was born again... things in me changed instantly."

Pierce also credits this change in spiritual direction to her pre-existing friendship with another tennis pro, Linda Wild.

Pierce started playing tennis at the age ten.

Two years after being introduced to tennis, for girls aged 12 and under she was ranked No. 2 in the country.

She reached six Grand Slam singles finals, most recently at the US Open and French Open in 2005.

She also won the mixed doubles event at the 2005 Wimbledon Championships, partnered with Mahesh Bhupathi.

Pierce won 18 singles titles and 10 doubles titles on the WTA Tour, including five Tier I singles events.

She also twice reached the final of the season-ending WTA Tour Championships.

Her brother David was also Pierce's regular coach until 2006.

German Aguero, founder of Future Tennis Camps, can also be credited with Pierce's early success as he took her in for several years and coached her free of charge.

She was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 2019.

Mary Pierce was born in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, to Yannick Adjaj and Jim Pierce.

Her mother is French and her father American, qualifying Pierce for citizenship in all three countries.

She was raised in the United States and represented France in international tennis competitions.

She speaks English and French fluently, and lives in Mauritius as of May 2019.