The Career of Cara Black Trivia Quiz

Answer: Zimbabwe

Cara Black was born on the 17th of February 1979 in the city of Salisbury, at the time the capital of Rhodesia. In 1982 the name of the city changed to Harare. The name of the country had already changed in 1980 to Zimbabwe.

Cara started playing tennis by age four. Her family had grass courts near their home. Cara has always listed grass as her favourite surface. She turned professional at the age of 19. In 1997 she had her first year-end ranking in singles at 189. In 1996 she had already won her first tournament, a $ 10.000 satellite on the ITF-Tour in the Slovakian city of Nitra.

Answer: Waikoloa

In 2002 Cara did manage to win the singles title at the Big Island Champs in Waikoloa, Hawaii. She defeated second seed American Lisa Raymond in the final, winning 7-6, 6-4. She also defeated eighth seed Alina Jidkova and fourth seed Elena Likhovtseva en route to the final. After 2002 the tournament was discontinued on the WTA Tour. The tournament was held for the first time in 2001, with French Sandrine Testud winning in singles that year.

Cara had made the final of the WTA tournament in Auckland, New Zealand, in 2000. She lost that final to Anne Kremer of Luxembourg, losing 6-4, 6-4. She also played the doubles final that year. She did manage to win that final, alongside French Alexandra Fusai, defeating the Austrian pair of Barbara Schwartz and Patricia Wartusch by 3-6, 6-3, 6-4.

Answer: Joe

Cara is the daughter of Donald (also called Don) and Velia Black. Donald Black was a tennis player representing Southern Rhodesia. His best result is the third round at Wimbledon, which he achieved in 1953 and 1956. After his tennis career he worked as a teacher. On the family farm there were several grass courts, where he taught his children tennis. Don died at the age of 72 in 2000, from the complications of surgery.

Cara has two older brothers called Byron (born in 1969) and Wayne (born in 1973). They both represented Zimbabwe in tennis, mostly achieving succes in doubles. Byron won the French Open in 1994, alongside American Jonathan Stark. He retired in 2002. Wayne holds two Grand Slam titles, the 2001 US Open and the 2005 Australian Open (both with Zimbabwean compatriot Kevin Ullyett). He retired in 2006.

Answer: 's-Hertogenbosch

In 1999 Cara made the final of the Heineken Trophy, held in the Dutch municipality of 's-Hertogenbosch. The tournament location is actually closer to the city of Rosmalen (which is how the tournament is also sometimes called). She partnered Dutch player Kristie Boogert. They were the fourth seeds. In the final they were defeated by the Italian pair of Silvia Farina-Elia and Rita Grande by 7-5, 7-6. Cara was also the seventh seed in singles that year, losing to Croatian Silvija Talaja in the second round.

Cara would go on to win her first title in doubles at the ASB Classic in 2000, held in Auckland, New Zealand. It would be another year before the second title, when she won in the Australian city of Hobart, alongside Russian Elena Likhovtseva. She would eventually win seven doubles title on the WTA-Tour in 2001, ending the year ranked third in the WTA doubles rankings.

Answer: Liezel Huber

Cara Black won her first doubles title alongside Liezel Huber at the 2001 Toyota Princess Cup in Tokyo. They defeated Belgian Kim Clijsters and Japanese Ai Sugiyama in the final 6-1, 6-3. They would eventually form a long-time partnership and win four Grand Slam doubles titles, including two titles at Wimbledon, in 2005 and 2007.

Liezel Huber was born as Liezel Horn on the 21st of August 1976 in Durban, South Africa. She is especially known as a doubles specialiast. At a young age she moved to the USA to train at a tennis academy. In 2000 she married Tony Huber. In 2007 she switched to American citizenship and started playing for that country as well.

Answer: Leander Paes

Cara won her first mixed doubles Grand Slam in 2002, with her brother Wayne. At the French Open they defeated Elena Bovina from Russia and Mark Knowles from the Bahamas in the final by 6-3, 6-3. It would be another two years before she made another mixed doubles final, once again at the French Open with Wayne, this time being defeated by the French pair of Tatiana Golovin and Richard Gasquet by 6-3, 6-4. In 2008 won her first mixed doubles Grand Slam title with Leander Paes at the US Open.

Leander Adrian Paes was born on the 17th of June 1973 in Goa, India. Primarily seen as doubles specialist, he did win a singles title at the 1998 Campbell's Hall of Fame Tennis Championships in Newport. He also won the bronze medal in singles, at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta. He achieved a lot more in doubles however, playing with regular partners like Mahesh Bhupathi, Lukas Dlouhy and Radek Stepanek.

Answer: French Open

Cara first played main draw in singles at a Grand Slam in 1998 at the French Open. She entered the main draw through the qualifying tournament. She lost to Russian Elena Likhovtseva in the second round. In the first round she defeated fellow qualifier Ana Alcazar from Spain by 6-3, 4-6, 6-3.

Her best result in Grand Slam singles was at the 2001 French Open. After defeating Dutch Kristie Boogert and Swiss Patty Schnyder, she upset eighth seed Conchita Martinez in the third round by 3-6 ,6-3, 6-4. She would go on to lose to Italian Francesca Schiavone in the next round, losing 7-6, 6-1. She made at least the second round at all Grand Slams in singles, with a third round at Wimbledon in 1998, 2003 and 2005.

Answer: Kveta Peschke/Rennae Stubbs

Cara played the Masters (the year-ending tournament)for ten years in a row in doubles, starting in 2000. In her first edition she was defeated alongside Russian Elena Likhovtseva in the quarter finals by Swiss Martina Hingis and Russian Anna Kournikova. She made at least the final in the other editions, with the exception of 2003, when she lost in the semi finals.

She won the Masters tournament in 2007 and 2008, in Madrid and Doha respectively. In both editions she partnered Liezel Huber. In 2007 they defeated Slovenian Katarina Srebotnik and Japanese Ai Sugiyama by 5-7, 6-3, 10-8 (doubles has a super tie-break in the final set). In 2008 their win in the final was over Czech Kveta Peschke and Australian Rennae Stubbs. The winning score was 6-1, 7-5.

Answer: Tina Pisnik

The first Olympics Cara competed in were the 2000 Olympics in Sydney. She lost in the first round to Italian Silvia Farina-Elia by 6-2, 3-6, 6-3. She did not compete in doubles, due to the lack of other top players from her country. Mixed doubles was only introduced again at the 2012 Olympics in London. Cara did not compete in that event.

Her only win came at the 2004 Olympics in Athens. She defeated Slovenian Tina Pisnik in the first round by 7-5, 4-6, 6-3. She would go on to lose to American Chanda Rubin by 6-4, 3-6, 6-3. Her last Olympic performance was in the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. She lost to Serbian Jelena Jankovic in the first round by 6-3, 6-3.

Answer: Lachlan

After Wimbledon 2011 it was announced that Cara would take a break to give birth to her first child. The father is Brett Stevens, a former AFL player who worked as a fitness coach for tennis players (among them his later wife Cara). She married Brett in 2005.

On the 26th of April 2012 she gave birth to a boy called Lachlan. The meaning of the name Lachlan is "of the land of the lakes". The name is possibly of Irish or Gaelic origin. Maybe Lachlan will eventually start to play tennis as well.