Mirjana Lučić

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Mirjana Lučić (born in March 9, 1982, in Dortmund, Germany) is a former professional tennis player from Croatia. She enjoyed a brief but promising career on the WTA Tour in the late-1990s, during which she set a few "youngest-ever" records and won one Grand Slam women's doubles title at the Australian Open in 1998, partnering Martina Hingis. But following a series of injury problems from 2000 onwards, she faded from the scene.

Lučić began playing tennis at age four by hiding in the car when her older sister went to tennis classes and then sneaking into the lessons herself. As a junior player, she won the girls' singles title at the US Open in 1996, and the girls' singles and doubles crowns at the Australian Open in 1997, becoming only the third player in the Open Era to win two junior Grand Slam singles titles by the age of 14 (the others being Hingis and Jennifer Capriati).

Lučić turned professional in April 1997 at the age of 15. One week after turning pro, she won the very first WTA Tour event she played in at Bol. She then reached the final of her second career event in Strasbourg, where she lost to Steffi Graf.

In 1998, playing in her very first tour doubles event, Lučić became the youngest player in history to win a title at the Australian Open at age 15 years, 10 months and 21 days, when she and Hingis won the women's doubles title. The win made Lučić the first player to win both the very first singles and doubles events they had ever played in on the WTA Tour. And she went on to win the second doubles event of her career when she partnered Hingis to win the Pan Pacific Open in Tokyo. Later that year, Lučić defended her singles title at Bol, becoming the youngest player ever to defend a tour title at age 16 years, 1 month and 24 days. She also finished runner-up in the 1998 mixed doubles event at Wimbledon, partnering Mahesh Bhupathi.

In 1999, Lučić achieved her career-best Grand Slam singles performance when she reached the semi-finals at Wimbledon, before losing in three sets to Graf 6-7 (4), 6-4, 6-4. In the 3rd round, she stunned World No. 4 and 9 time Grand Slam champion, Monica Seles 7-6, 7-6.

After 1999, Lučić's suffered a series of injury problems and she failed to make any further significant impact on the tour. She last appeared on the tour in 2003. Her career-high world rankings were World No. 32 in singles and World No. 19 in doubles (both achieved in 1998).