Aravane Rezaï is one of the great few professional Muslim women Iranian French tennis players in the world, born in 14 March, 1987 in the city of Saint-Étienne. She is famous for defeating world class tennis players on the WTZ circuit like Venus Williams, Maria Sharapova, Jelena Janković, Caroline Wozniacki, Marion Bartoli, Justine Henin, Dinara Safina, Francesca Schiavone, AI Sugiyama, Flavia Pennetta and Victoria Azarenka. There are things that she cannot do as a Muslim like covering her head but may wear headscarf later in life. However, she has not come heavily under criticism for not making use of their Islamic attire like Sania Mirza of India, who was ostracized for not making use of their Islamic wear on court. She has played as a teenager for her parent’s country in the Islamic Solidarity Games in Tehran in 2005 to win two gold medals against the Indonesian team, by defeating Wynne Prakusya in the singles, before teaming with Shadi Tabatabai to beat Wynne and Ayu Fani Damayanti in the doubles. She plays for French and have been under the tutelage of her Father, Arsalan and mother, Nouchine, a physiotherapist when she was eight.
On 11 October 2010, she ranked the NO.15 on the WTA circuit. She has met the Iranian President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad because of her success as a Muslim player. It was not an easy ride to success as she has to overcome the initial racism from the France’s tennis authorizes and lack of family money to become a superstar today. The father had to stop working to make sure she becomes a better tennis player. She was the source of income for the family, and there was always pressure for her win. This is because she had to win for them to survive; she slept in barns during tournaments until she was around 18 or 19 years as there was no support from the French Federation. She is now based in Neuchâtel, Switzerland.
2006 was a good year for her as she started playing for France. However, she lost a second year in a row while qualifying for the Australian Open, but she was successful in the French Open. In the US Open that year, she reached the fourth round, which is her career best Grand Slam singles result ever. She reached the finals of two ITF tournaments and winning on the hard courts of France. In 2007, she had started poorly only reaching the second round in her first thirteen tournaments on tour and also a first round loss at the Australian Open. It was also a great year for her as she beat World No. 29 Venus Williams in the 2nd round in the international clay tournament of Istanbul and the international clay tournament of Istanbul but lost to Russian Elena Dementieva in the finals due to retire. However, she won another ITF Circuit title in Deauville, France.
In 2008, she reached the final of the ASB Classic in Auckland, New Zealand without being unseeded but lost to American Lindsay Davenport and then she reached the semi finals on the clay of Morocco in mid-spring, only to be beaten by Gisela Dulko. She reached the third round at the Australian Open, beating thirteenth seed Tatiana Golovin in the second round and losing to Hsieh Su-Wei. However, she had a disappointing play in the rest of her tournament. She has vowed to Nadia Petrova in the first round at the French Open and then at Wimbledon. She lost to Gisela Dulko of Argentina and in the US Open. She defeated American Asia Muhammad and lost to Sybille Bammer in the second round.
Rezaï was seeded No. 7 in the 2010 ASB Classic, seeded No. 26 for the Australian Open, was seeded No. 5 for the 2010 Open GDF Suez, seeded 15th at the 2010 French Open and defected Venus Williams in the final of the 2010 Mutual Madrileña Madrid Open and was ranked world number 16.
2009 was a good one for her, she won her first WTA Tour in Strasbourg, she has beaten Lucie Hradecká in the finals. She went as far as the 4th round of the French Open despite her first round loss at the Australian Open. She defeated World No. 1 Dinara Safina in the first round of Rogers Cup, which is the biggest upset of the tournament but was defeated by Alisa Kleybanova in the third round. Her loss to Sabine Lisicki at the US Open in the first round was her earliest loss ever at the US Open. She was seeded tenth in the 2009 Commonwealth Bank Tournament of Champions, became the first player to advance to the semifinals of the inaugural event and won the tournament to be the world number 26.
In 2011, Rezaï opened up about her problem with her father. Even though she did not really explain what happened between them, she had made it clear she wanted to take her decisions as an adult and not being controlled by her family. Arsalan Rezaï, the father was accused of abuse and violence that he was restrained from hitting other people. She was banned at one time from training with other players at Roland Garros because of her father. She equally debunked a lot of negative things that were spoken about them by the press. It was this year, she got an invitation to play in the Hong Kong Tennis Classic with Caroline Wozniacki and Stefan Edberg for Team Europe but the team did not qualify in the final of Gold Group. She has a lot of poor form performance in 2011 but managed to reach the finals at Dallas WTA.
Rezaï started 2012 playing in Auckland and lost to Chinese Shuai Penguins the first round. She retired in the qualifying draw in Sydney. She only reached two ITF finals with a victory in the final at the Open 88 tournament in Contrexéville. She is an inspiration to a lot of Muslim girls and is well recognized for her hard hitting games. She hits the ball with an immense power that makes her stand out in any court.
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