Sabine Lisicki

At the Australian Open, Lisicki defeated the 30th seed Aleksandra Wozniak in the opening round before losing to Samantha Stosur in straight sets.

Lisicki's parents emigrated to West Germany from Poland in 1979; her father, Dr. Richard Lisicki, is of German and Polish descent and her mother, Elisabeth, of Polish.

They came to Germany as "Aussiedler", descended from German citizens who lived in the former eastern territories of Germany which had become part of Poland after World War II.

Sabine Katharina Lisicki (born 22 September 1989) is a German professional tennis player.

Lisicki was born in Troisdorf, North Rhine-Westphalia, in 1989.

Her father, who introduced her to the sport at the age of seven, has a doctorate in sport science and is her coach.

Her mother is a painter specialising in ceramics.

Since 2004, Lisicki has trained at the Nick Bollettieri Tennis Academy in Bradenton, Florida, where she is sponsored and managed by IMG.

She is coached by her father, who studied sport science in Wrocław and Cologne.

Early in her career, Lisicki could not fly to tournaments because of a lack of funding.

She had to be driven across Europe in a car by her parents so that she could attend tournaments.

Lisicki said: "My parents did everything possible to let me play tennis. That's what I appreciated so much. My dad has worked from 8 in the morning til 9 in the evening to make it possible so I can play tennis. We had to cancel tournaments because we couldn't afford to go there."

Lisicki turned professional in 2006, and her breakthrough came in 2009 when she reached the quarterfinals of the Wimbledon Championships, and also won her first title on the WTA Tour, at the Family Circle Cup.

In 2006, Lisicki competed at the Sunfeast Open in Kolkata, where she defeated Ragini Vimal in the first, but lost in the final qualifying round to Sanaa Bhambri.

She competed in her first WTA Tour main-draw match when she was given a wildcard to play at the German Open.

She lost in the first round to Mara Santangelo, in three sets.

Lisicki had a successful year in 2007 on the ITF Circuit and climbed from world No. 497 to No. 198 in the WTA rankings.

She won two titles, one in Jersey and the other in Toronto.

She defeated top-seed Katie O'Brien at the Vancouver Open.

At Wimbledon, Lisicki lost in the first round to the 2007 runner-up, 11th seed Marion Bartoli.

In October, Lisicki reached her first WTA tournament final at the Tashkent Open, where she lost in three sets to fellow teenager Sorana Cîrstea.

Lisicki started her year at the Hopman Cup in Perth where she advanced to the third round before losing to Dominika Cibulková in straight sets.

In a 2009 interview with the German newspaper Die Welt, her father put emphasis on Lisicki being German: "Sabine is a German – not only because of her birth here [in Germany]."

In March 2010, she suffered an ankle injury at the Indian Wells Open that kept her out of competition for five months and saw her fall out of the top 200.

Lisicki rebounded in 2011 and won the Birmingham Classic, before entering the Wimbledon Championships as a wildcard and going on to reach the semifinals, where she lost to Maria Sharapova.

In doing so she became only the second woman in Wimbledon history to make it to the semifinals while entering the tournament as a wildcard.

She followed that two months later by winning her third WTA tournament, the Texas Open.

In doubles, Lisicki won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix in 2011 with Samantha Stosur and in 2013 with Mona Barthel and the 2014 Miami Open with coach Martina Hingis.

She also reached the doubles final at Wimbledon in 2011 with Stosur and came fourth in the mixed-doubles event at the 2012 London Olympics with Christopher Kas.

In 2012, she achieved her career-high ranking of world No. 12 and again reached the quarterfinals of Wimbledon.

Again, in 2012 she suffered from another ankle injury that prevented her from having better results on tour.

Lisicki reached the final of the 2013 Wimbledon Championships, losing to Marion Bartoli.

The following year, she had another quarterfinal at Wimbledon and won her first title in three years when she won the Hong Kong Open.

Between 2014 and 2018, Lisicki held the world record for the fastest serve by a female tennis player.

A 131.0 mph serve was measured during her first-round encounter against Ana Ivanovic at the 2014 Stanford Classic.

She also held the record for the most aces in a singles match, hitting 27 aces during her second-round encounter against Belinda Bencic at the 2015 Birmingham Classic, until it was surpassed by Kristýna Plíšková at the 2016 Australian Open.

At the Australian Open, her first Grand Slam tournament, she defeated the 16th-seeded player, Dinara Safina, as well as Mariya Koryttseva to reach the third round as a qualifier.

She lost her third round match to Caroline Wozniacki.

In the first round of the Fed Cup against the United States, Lisicki defeated Lindsay Davenport in straight sets.

Lisicki next reached the fourth round of the Miami Open, a Tier I event, where she defeated sixth seeded Anna Chakvetadze in straight sets, but was defeated in the next round by Elena Dementieva.