Barbara Schett is a former professional tennis player with over a decade long career. She began playing tennis professionally in 1992 and won many tournaments, including 13 Women's Tennis Association tournaments and one International Tennis Federation tournament before retiring from the game in 2005.
Barbara Schett was born in Innsbruck, Austria on March 10, 1976. Both of her parents were bankers. She was introduced to the game of tennis at a young age, as everyone in her family played tennis for fun. She started her pro tennis career at the age of sixteen, making her tour debut as a wild card. On her first tour, she made it to the quarter finals. In 1992, she won her first professional singles title. In 1994, she played her first Grand Slam, and reached the WTA Tour semi final. In 1995, she played her for Fed Cup for her native Austria, against the United States (The Fed Cup is the most prestigious tournament for female national teams, the equivalent of the Davis Cup for men). Barbara Schett continued to qualify highly in various tournaments every year. Her greatest prize earnings was in 1999, when she won $725,865, finishing in the Top Ten with 47 Tour singles victories. Two years later, in 2001, Barbara Schett make waves worldwide when she defeated Venus Williams in the French Open; her first victory against a world number 2. That same year, with Kournikova, she won the Sydney doubles title, and reached the highest doubles rank of her career at number eight.
In 2004, Barbara Schett announced that she would retire after the 2005 Australian Open. That year she was able to beat Martina Navratilova in the Fed Cup, breaking Martina Navratilova's string of forty consecutive singles / doubles victories. As she predicted, her last pro game was at the Australian Open, where her final victory was against a wild card in the first round.