Who is Harmony Tan? French tennis player upsets Serena Williams in first Wimbledon appearance

29.06.2022, 02:28 sportingnews.com

Harmony Tan had never reached Wimbledon in her tennis career before this year. The closest she had gotten to the world's oldest tennis tournament was the second round of 2021 women's singles qualifying, where she was eliminated. She finally earned a spot in the main draw in 2022. Her first-round opponent? Seven-time Wimbledon champion Serena Williams. In a match that lasted 3 hours and 11 minutes, Tan stunned the tennis world by defeating Williams in a third-set tiebreaker 10-7 on Tuesday to advance to the second round. It matches the farthest she has advanced in any Grand Slam singles event. "I'm so emotional now, I don't know what to say now because she's a superstar and when I was young, watching her so many times on the TV and, yeah, for my first Wimbledon, it's wow. Just wow," the 24-year-old Tan told ESPN after the match. MORE: Full brackets, seedings, route to final at Wimbledon Still, Tan remains an unknown in the world of tennis. Here's what you need to know about the French player. Plenty of young French tennis stars begin their training in the French Tennis Federation. But that wasn't the case for Tan. According to Tennis Majors, she trained in the Val-de-Marne League and has continued to train privately at the Bollettieri Academy in Florida or at the home of Melanie Molitorova, the mother of five-time Grand Slam singles winner Martina Hingis, in Switzerland. Her parents, who are from Vietnam and Cambodia, helped to pay for her training by selling a house. She has been coached by 1998 Wimbledon runner-up Nathalie Tauziat, and she has worked with Sam Sumyk. According to The New York Times, Tan does not have much power and hits "a puffball second serve," but has a skill set that plays well on grass. MORE: Can Iga Swiatek make more history by winning Wimbledon? According to Tennis Majors, she has a standout backhand slice, drop shot and volley and is especially effective with her backhand. She has spent several years on the ITF Women's Circuit. She won her first ITF title in September 2015 in Algiers, and has since won seven more singles titles and one doubles title. Tennis Majors reported that she was 14 in her first ITF Tournament and joined the National Institute of Sport, Expertise and Performance in France at 16. Tan made her first Grand Slam appearance in the 2017 French Open but was eliminated in the first round. She would not appear in another Grand Slam singles tournament until the 2018 U.S. Open, where she was also eliminated in the first round. She has since made it to each of the next four French Opens, and she earned her first Grand Slam singles victory in the 2021 French Open, when she knocked out Alizé Cornet in the first round. "It's always something to win at Roland-Garros, to do it in France is something incredible," she told RMC Sport, translated from French. MORE: How much will the Wimbledon winner make? She began 2022 by defeating Yulia Putintseva in straight sets to advance to the second round of the Australian Open. She retired to Elina Svitolina in the third set in her next match. Tan reached the second round of qualifying for Wimbledon in 2021, where she lost to Varvara Lepchenko. Heading into Tuesday's match against Williams, Tan was ranked No. 115 in the world by the WTA. According to Tan's WTA profile, she plays piano and surfs and goes to Biarritz each summer. According to RMC Sport, she played piano at a conservatory for eight years, focusing primarily on the works of Mozart and Beethoven, though now Ed Sheeran has entered the fold. It also said she has been surfing for the past 15 years. Tennis Majors reported that she continued to pursue her education over the years. She "obtained her baccalaureate" and then entered the Sciences Po Paris program, which is reserved for high-level athletes.