Mary Pierce

French-Canadian tennis star, the youngest ever to turn pro before 1990. She won the Australian Open in January 1995 and was a huge success in the French Open in June 1996, winning over Steffi Graf and making over $4 million in her career. The first of two children, Mary was born before her parents were married. Her father, Jim, wed her mother, Yannic Adjani, a French exchange student, the same year that Mary was born and they had a boy the following year. The family moved to Hollywood, Florida soon thereafter. When Mary was ten her father discovered she was a tennis protégé, beating the 20th ranked local 12-and-under player just two weeks after being introduced to the game. Two years later she was ranked No.2 in the country in the 12-and-under division. Mary turned pro in March 1989. In 1990 the USTA stopped player development funding to her because of her father's continual boorishness. He moved the family to France, where Mary and Yannic had citizenship, in exchange for funding her play on the French team. Jim coached her but his abusive and offensive methods, even becoming physically violent. The Women's Tennis Council invoked a new edict, since dubbed the "Jim Pierce rule," that lets the organization bar disruptive members of a player's entourage. In June 1993, Mary fired her dad as coach. No longer the hollow-eyed, anxiety stricken teenager who would freeze during matches, her career sped ahead when she relaxed into her game with no fear of the consequences of losing or reprisals from her father. She received France's Burgeon Award in 1992. Mary won her first Grand Slam title at the 1995 Australian Open, climbing to a career high ranking of No.3 on 1/30/1995. She won the title of Comeback Player of the Year 1997 and four titles in a season for the first time in 1998, winning her last matches with a ten game winning streak. Her 300th career match win was in the U.S. Open summer 1998. Mary's home is in Florida where she lives with baseball player Roberto Alomar. She was sidelined for more than two months missing the 1996 U.S. Open due to a right shoulder injury. Link to Wikipedia biography