Polona Hercog

Polona Hercog (born 20 January 1991) is a Slovenian tennis player. Her highest ranking is No. 35 in singles and No. 56 in doubles. Hercog has won four WTA Tour titles; two each in singles and doubles. She also enjoyed success on the ITF Circuit, winning ten singles and five doubles titles. She is the Slovenian No. 1 in women's tennis.
Partnering with Jessica Moore, she won the 2008 French Open and Wimbledon Championships junior titles in the doubles competition.

Polona Hercog was born to florist Romana and bar owner Vojko. She began playing tennis aged four in the tennis clinic opened by Mima Jaušovec in Maribor, and moved to Italy at age 14 to train professionally. Hercog is fluent in Slovenian, English, and Italian, and cites Justine Henin as her role model. She currently resides in her hometown of Maribor and practices in Budapest. Hercog is a fan of snowboarding, football, basketball and surfing.

2007—2009

Polona at the 2009 Allianz Cup

Hercog made her WTA Tour debut in Portorož, Slovenia, losing to Elena Vesnina in three sets. In 2008, Hercog participated in the 2008 İstanbul Cup, where she lost in the first round to Tsvetana Pironkova, but reached the finals of the doubles competition partnering with New Zealand's Marina Erakovic. The same year, Hercog and Australian Jessica Moore won two Grand Slam junior doubles titles, the French Open and the Wimbledon Championships. She also played the qualifications for the US Open, but lost to Sandra Záhlavová in the first round in straight sets.

Hercog entered the 2009 Grand Prix SAR La Princesse Lalla Meryem in Fes, Morocco via the qualifying rounds, and beat seventh seed Roberta Vinci to reach the quarterfinals, where she was defeated by Alisa Kleybanova. At that year's French Open she upset 23rd seeded Kleybanova, but was in turn beaten by Aravane Rezaï. At the US Open, Hercog was beaten by American wildcard Christina McHale in the first round. She also played the BGL Luxembourg Open, defeating Maria Elena Camerin in the opening round. She then lost to Sabine Lisicki in two sets. Polona managed to make it up to the second round at the 2009 Allianz Cup in Sofia, Bulgaria but was beaten by Bojana Jovanovski.

2010

Hercog opened the season with early losses at her first three tournaments, including a second round showing at the Australian Open, where she lost to Alona Bondarenko. After playing for Slovenia Fed Cup team, she won the ITF event in Cali, Colombia, but then suffered an opening round loss to Catalina Castaño at the Copa Sony Ericsson Colsanitas.

At the tournament in Acapulco, Mexico, Hercog reached her first WTA Tour singles final and won her first WTA Tour doubles title. She defeated Rossana de los Ríos in the first round, Alizé Cornet in the second, Ágnes Szávay retired from the quarterfinals match when Hercog was leading by a set, and Carla Suárez Navarro in two sets in the semifinals. In the final, Hercog lost to first seed and former world No. 1 Venus Williams, despite winning the first set. Partnering with Barbora Záhlavová-Strýcová, she won her first Tour doubles title, beating the Italian team of Sara Errani and Roberta Vinci.

At the 2010 Indian Wells Masters, Hercog defeated Ioana Raluca Olaru in the first round and was defeated by 11th seed Marion Bartoli in the second round.

Hercog caused an upset in the second round of the 2010 French Open by defeating No. 24 Lucie Šafářová.

In Portorož, she reached the semi-finals, was up a set against Anna Chakvetadze but then lost the match in three sets.

Seeded 6th at the 2010 e-Boks Danish Open in Copenhagen, she had a chance to take revenge on Anna Chakvetadze as they met in the quarterfinals. Hercog lost the match, this time in straight sets.

2011

Hercog began the year with three straight losses, including a first-round loss at the 2011 Australian Open to Anastasija Sevastova. In Fed Cup against Germany, she split her singles rubbers, defeating Julia Görges but losing to Andrea Petkovic. She split with her long-time coach, Zoltan Kuharszky, and is now working with Vladimir Platenik. She lost in the first rounds of clay tournaments in Bogotá and Acapulco, where she had reached the final in 2010. She then reached the semifinals of Monterrey, where she lost to Jelena Janković.On 9 July she defeated Johanna Larsson in the final at Båstad to win her first WTA Tournament.

2012

In July 2012, Hercog successfully defended the Swedish Open title by defeating Mathilde Johansson in three sets.

Singles: 4 (2 titles, 2 runners-up)

Outcome	No.	Date	Tournament	Surface	Opponent in final	Score in final
Runner-up	1.	27 February 2010	Mexican Open, Acapulco, Mexico	Clay	Venus Williams	6–2, 2–6, 3–6
Winner	1.	9 July 2011	Swedish Open, Båstad, Sweden	Clay	Johanna Larsson	6–4, 7–5
Runner-up	2.	17 July 2011	Palermo Open, Palermo, Italy	Clay	Anabel Medina Garrigues	3–6, 2–6
Winner	2.	22 July 2012	Swedish Open, Båstad, Sweden (2)	Clay	Mathilde Johansson	0–6, 6–4, 7–5

Doubles: 3 (2 titles, 1 runner-up)

Outcome	No.	Date	Tournament	Surface	Partner	Opponents in final	Score in final
Runner-up	1.	19 May 2008	İstanbul Cup, Istanbul, Turkey	Clay	Marina Erakovic	Jill Craybas Olga Govortsova	1–6, 2–6
Winner	1.	28 February 2010	Mexican Open, Acapulco, Mexico	Clay	Barbora Záhlavová-Strýcová	Sara Errani Roberta Vinci	2–6, 6–1, [10–2]
Winner	2.	26 September 2010	Korea Open, Seoul, South Korea	Hard	Julia Görges	Natalie Grandin Vladimíra Uhlířová	6–3, 6–4

Singles: 12 (11–1)

Outcome	No.	Date	Tournament	Surface	Opponent	Score
Winner	1.	13 August 2007	Pesaro, Italy	Clay	Stephanie Vogt	6–2, 2–6, 6–1
Winner	2.	21 August 2007	Maribor, Slovenia	Clay	Tereza Hladíková	4–6, 6–1, 4–1 ret.
Winner	3.	4 February 2008	Mallorca, Spain	Clay	Inés Ferrer Suárez	6–3, 6–1
Winner	4.	11 February 2008	Mallorca 2, Spain	Clay	Stephanie Vogt	4–6, 6–1, 6–3
Runner-up	1.	6 April 2008	Civitavecchia, Italy	Clay	Betina Jozami	2–6, 2–6
Winner	5.	13 April 2009	Civitavecchia, Italy	Clay	Andrea Petkovic	6–2,6–4
Winner	6.	4 May 2009	Zagreb, Croatia	Clay	Maša Zec Peškirič	7–5, 6–2
Winner	7.	8 June 2009	Zlín, Czech Republic	Clay	Zuzana Kučová	6–3, 6–1
Winner	8.	8 June 2009	Cuneo, Italy	Clay	Varvara Lepchenko	6–1, 6–2
Winner	9.	8 February 2010	Cali, Colombia	Clay	Mariana Duque-Marino	6–4, 5–7, 6–2
Winner	10.	27 May 2013	Maribor, Slovenia	Clay	Ana Konjuh	3–6 6–3 6–3
Winner	11.	21 July 2013	Olomouc, Czech Republic	Clay	Katarzyna Piter	6–0, 6–3

Doubles: 7 (5–2)

Outcome	No.	Date	Tournament	Surface	Partner	Opponents	Score
Winner	1.	15 January 2007	Algiers 2, Algeria	Clay	Rushmi Chakravarthi	Barbora Matusova Anna Savitskaya	6–2, 6–0
Winner	2.	11 February 2008	Mallorca 2, Spain	Clay	Stephanie Vogt	Leticia Costas-Moreira Maite Gabarrus Alonso	7–6(7–2), 6–3
Runner-up	1.	19 April 2008	Bari, Italy	Clay	Stephanie Vogt	Alberta Brianti Anna Floris	3–6, 3–6
Winner	3.	28 April 2008	Makarska, Croatia	Clay	Stephanie Vogt	Tadeja Majerič Maša Zec Peškirič	7–5, 6–2
Winner	4.	8 September 2008	Sarajevo 2, Bosnia-Herzegovina	Clay	Alberta Brianti	Çağla Büyükakçay Julia Glushko	6–4, 7–5
Runner-up	2.	18 September 2009	Sofia, Bulgaria	Clay	Petra Martić	Tathiana Garbin Timea Bacsinszky	2–6, 6–7
Winner	5.	8 February 2010	Cali, Colombia	Clay	Edina Gallovits	Estrella Cabeza Candela Laura Pous Tió	3–6, 6–3, [10–8]

Singles

Only Main Draw results in WTA Tour, Grand Slam Tournaments and Olympic Games are included in Win–Loss records. This table is current through the 2016 Sydney International.

Doubles

Only Main Draw results in WTA Tour, Grand Slam Tournaments and Olympic Games are included in Win–Loss records. This table is current through the 2015 US Open.