The Justine Henin (La Petit Taureau) Quiz

In honor of the Hall of Fame induction of Justine Henin, here it is: the long, long awaited (well, overdue, at least) La Petit Taureau Quiz.

So everyone put your thinking caps on. Yes, you too, Justine.

1. True or False? Henin spent more time at WTA singles #1 during the 2000's (2000-2009) than any other player.
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2. What is noteworthy about Henin's debut WTA event in Antwerp in 1999?
a. she won her first match 6-0/6-0
b. she defeated a Top 10 player in the 1st Round
c. she won the tournament singles title
d. heavy, week-long rain forced the event to be cancelled
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3. Who did Henin defeat in the final to win the 1997 Roland Garros girls singles title?
a. Kim Clijsters
b. Cara Black
c. Virginie Razzano
d. Elena Dementieva
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4. Against which British player did Henin record her final match win in her last tournament, the 2011 Australian Open?
a. Elena Baltacha
b. Laura Robson
c. Anne Keothavong
d. Heather Watson
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5. True or False? At the 2007 U.S. Open, Henin became the only woman to defeat both Venus and Serena Williams in singles in the same tournament for a second time in her career.
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6. Henin's career-long match winning streak was stretched over two seasons in 2007-08. How many matches in a row did she win?
a. 34 matches
b. 33 matches
c. 32 matches
d. 31 matches
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7. EXTRA POINTS QUESTION: Who ended the above streak?
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8. Henin's 2004 2nd Round loss at Roland Garros to Tathiana Garbin is tied with one other result for the earliest exit in Paris by the women's #1 seed in the Open era. Which other player lost so early?
a. Serena Williams
b. Kim Clijsters
c. Ana Ivanovic
d. Caroline Wozniacki
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9. How many season-ending Top 10 rankings did Henin collect during her career?
a. 10
b. 9
c. 8
d. 7
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10. True or False? Both phases of Henin's career, in 2008 and 2011, ended with the Belgian suffering losses at the hands of a Russian.
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>>>[ 3 PTS. EACH UNLESS NOTED ]<<<
1. True - All 117 weeks in which Henin was ranked #1 in the world took place during the 2000's, more weeks than any other woman during the decade.
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2. c - Henin, 16, claimed the singles title at her debut WTA event in Antwerp in May 1999. Her first tour-level win came over Lubomira Bacheva (6-2/6-1), and she won the title while dropping just one set in five matches, taking the final by a 6-1/6-2 score over Sarah Pitkowski. She was the fifth of now six players who have won their debut WTA event: Tracy Austin (1977), Petra Langrova (1988), Mirjana Lucic (1997), Katarina Srebotnik (1999), Henin (1999) and Angelique Widjaja (2001).
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3. b - Henin defeated Cara Black 4-6/6-4/6-4 in the RG girls final to claim her only junior slam title. She defeated French players Virginie Razzano (2nd Rd.) and Nathalie Dechy (SF) en route to the final. In her other junior slam appearances, Henin lost in qualifying at the '96 RG and in the QF at both the '97 Wimbledon and U.S. Open.
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4. a - Henin's final match win came with a 6-1/6-3 2nd Round victory over Elena Baltacha. It was the first singles match Henin had played against a British woman since 2000 (in a $75K challenger). Baltacha and Anne Keothavong (a qualifier) were the only British woman in the Australian Open main draw in 2011. Baltacha would die of liver cancer at age 30 in May 2014.
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5. False - While Henin did defeat both Venus and Serena at the '07 U.S. Open en route to her final slam crown, the only player to ever defeat both of the Williams Sisters in a single event TWICE in her career was... Kim Clijsters. The Belgian did it at the WTA Championships in 2002 and at the U.S. Open in 2009. She won both titles. Only five other woman have accomplished the feat just once -- Arantxa Sanchez ('98 Sydney), Steffi Graf ('99 Sydney), Martina Hingis ('01 Australian), Lindsay Davenport ('04 L.A.) and Jelena Jankovic ('10 Rome).
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6. c - Henin's streak reached 32 matches (25 in '07, then 7 more in '08).
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7. BONUS (5 points) Maria Sharapova - Sharapova ended the 2007-08 winning streak with a win over Henin in the '08 Australian Open QF. Henin had defeated the Russian in the three-set, 3:24 WTA Championships final in Madrid (the longest recorded final in WTA history) to end the '07 season.
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8. a - The only other world #1 other than Henin in 2004 to lose as early as the 2nd Round at Roland Garros was Serena Williams, who was upset in the 2nd Round in 2014 by Garbine Muguruza. Of note, Henin's '04 loss to Tathiana Garbin, which occurred when the Belgian was in the early stages of battling the energy-sapping cytomegalovirus, was her only loss in the event (29-1) over a five-year stretch from 2003-07.
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9. d - Henin had seven Top 10 season-ending rankings in her career, all consecutively from 2001 to 2007, with three #1 seasons in '03, '06 and '07. She retired for the first time in May '08 while ranked #1, but (unlike with some recently retired players) her name was dropped from the WTA's computer rankings one week later. In her comeback year of 2010, she finished #12 despite not playing the second half of the season after injuring her elbow at Wimbledon.
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10. True - Henin's final loss before her first retirement in '08 came in the Berlin 3rd Round vs. Dinara Safina, while her final loss before her second retirement in '11 came in the 3rd Round of the Australian Open at the hands of Svetlana Kuznetsova.
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29-32 pts. - 2003 U.S. Open Semifinal/Final
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23-28 pts. - 2007 Season
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16-21 pts. - 2004 Athens Olympics
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9-15 pts. - LPT 2
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0-8 pts. - The Wave
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All for now.

The April 2016 (prepping-for-Rio) Quiz

It's been a while, my old ten-question friend. But the time feels right to take at least one practice lap around the ol' quiz track before the Backspin Olympic Tennis Quiz III arrives this summer. So, focusing on items from the first few months of the 2016 season...

1. The Czechs have advanced to their fifth Fed Cup final in the last six years, making it possible that either Petra Kvitova or Lucie Safarova could provide a title-clinching singles win for the second time in their career. Kvitova clinched the 2014 title with a Day 2 singles victory, while Safarova did the same in 2012. Who is the only active singles player with two FC title-clinching singles wins in her career?

a. Roberta Vinci
b. Svetlana Kuznetsova
c. Sara Errani
d. Venus Williams
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2. Who is the only player to defeat two tournament #1 seeds through the first fifteen weeks of the 2016 season?

a. Daria Kasatkina
b. Roberta Vinci
c. Victoria Azarenka
d. Svetlana Kuznetsova
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3. We know that Sania Mirza is the #1-ranked doubles player from India. But who is ranked #1 in singles?

a. Prarthana Thombare
b. Ankita Raina
c. Sri Peddi Reddy
d. Sania Mirza (so this would be a trick question)

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4. Kristina Mladenovic won the Charleston doubles with Caroline Garcia, her first title with her fellow Pastry. Kiki has now won twenty-three professional doubles titles (WD/MX in slam, WTA, WTA 125 and ITF events) with sixteen different partners. Who is the only player who has won more than two titles with Mladenovic by their side?

a. Timea Babos
b. Daniel Nestor
c. Galina Voskoboeva
d. Naomi Broady
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5. 2015 Australian Open girls champ Tereza Mihalikova returned to Melbourne this year and reached the final again, losing to Vera Lapko. Who was the last girls slam singles champ to once more reach the final at the same event one year later?

a. Barbora Strycova
b. Ons Jabeur
c. Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova
d. Laura Robson
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6. The 2016 season has seen WTA singles titles won by two non-Williams Bannerettes named Stephens and Falconi. How many times, starting in 2004, have three or more U.S. players other than Venus or Serena claimed WTA singles crowns?

a. 1
b. 2
c. 3
d. the last time it happened was 2003
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7. Aga Radwanska has the longest current streak of weeks in the singles Top 20 (426 after Week 15). Who has the second-longest streak?

a. Serena Williams
b. Maria Sharapova
c. Petra Kvitova
d. Angelique Kerber
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8. There has not been an official "#1 vs. #2" singles battle on tour in 2016. While Angelique Kerber rose to #2 after her Australian Open win over #1 Serena Williams, the German was ranked #6 at the time of the match. The last #1-vs.-#2 match-up came over a year ago, when #1 Williams defeated then-#2 Maria Sharapova in the 2015 Australian Open final. What was the most recent #1-vs.-#2 before that one?

a. 2014 WTA Finals - Serena Williams/Simona Halep
b. 2014 Miami Final - Serena Williams/Li Na
c. 2013 U.S. Final - Serena Williams/Victoria Azarenka
d. 2013 Cincinnati Final - Victoria Azarenka/Serena Williams
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9. True or False? 18-year old Doha singles runner-up Jelena Ostapenko is the youngest finalist -- singles or doubles -- on tour in 2016?
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10. (FOR EXTRA POINTS) What did Victoria Azarenka, Aga Radwanska, Sloane Stephens, Hingis/Mirza and Viktorija Golubic all do in the same week in January of 2016?
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>>>[ 3 pts. each unless noted ]<<<
1. b - Svetlana Kuznetsova is the only active player who has twice clinched a Fed Cup title with a singles victory in the final, doing so for Russia in both 2007 and '08. Recently retired Italian Flavia Pennetta did it twice in 2009-10. Other than Kuznetsova, Kvitova and Safarova, the only other active player with such a win is Italy's Sara Errani (2013).
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2. d - Svetlana Kuznetsova is the only player who has defeated a tournament's #1 seed twice thus far in 2016. She won out over Simona Halep in the semifinals in Sydney, where the Russian went on to win the title, and Serena Williams in the 4th Round in Miami. Kuznetsova reached the final there, losing to Victoria Azarenka.
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3. b - Ankita Raina. Ranked just inside the Top 250, Raina is the only Indian woman ranked in the Top 400 in singles on the WTA tour.
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4. a - Babos has won three WTA doubles titles with Mladenovic, more than any other player. Mladenovic has won thirteen WTA doubles crowns with ten different partners. She's won two titles each with the other three players listed: Nestor (2 mixed slams), Voskoboeva (2 WTA) and Broady (2 ITF).
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5. c - Pavlyuchenkova won back-to-back AO girls titles in 2006-07. Jabeur had been the most recent junior to reach back-to-back finals at a major, losing at Roland Garros in 2010 and then winning the title a year later. Robson lost back-to-back AO singles final in 2009-10, while Strycova won consecutive AO girls crowns in 2002-03.
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6. a - One. 2014 is the only season since 2004 in which three non-Williams U.S. women won tour-level singles titles, with Madison Keys, Alison Riske and CoCo Vandeweghe all winning maiden crowns that year. Venus won her first title in 1998, with Serena taking hers in 1999. From 1999-2003, there were at least four non-Williams champions in each season.
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7. b - Sharapova is second with 288 weeks (after Week 15)
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8. b - The 2014 Miami final between #1 Williams and then-#2 Li was the only other #1-vs.-#2 match-up in the last twenty-five months. That's not the most sparsely-populated #1-vs.-#2 stretch in recent years, though. While there were several such matches in 2012 (4), 2013 (6) and 2014 (2), there were just three from October 2004 (after #2 Davenport d. #2 Mauresmo in Filderstadt) until March 2012: '06 Antwerp (#2 Mauresmo d. #1 Clijsters), '08 Sydney (#1 Henin d. #2 Kuznetsova) and the 2010 WTA Championships (#1 Wozniacki d. #2 Zvonareva).
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9. False - Ostapenko reached the Doha final at approximately 18 years, nine months of age. Another 18-year old, Belinda Bencic was two months older when she reached the final in St.Petersburg. But the youngest tour finalist thus far in 2016 is Aussie junior Kimberly Birrell, who reached the WTA-level doubles final (w/ Jarmila Wolfe) in Hobart in Week 2.
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10. (for 6 pts): Azarenka (Brisbane), Radwanska (Shenzhen), Stephens (Auckland), Hingis/Mirza (Brisbane) and Golubic (Victoria Park $25K ITF challenger - singles & doubles) all won titles in Week 1, which has turned out to be an even better barometer for success this season than it has been in past years.
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27-33 pts. - The Vika Zone ('Nuff said)
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18-26 pts. - The Golubic Zone (great, but not quite there)
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7-17 pts. - The Pliskova Zone (we'll choose to look at the bright side of things, okay?)
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0-6 pts. - The Stosur Zone (but you're fine if you stay out of Australia at Fed Cup time)
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Until around Olympic time (if not before then).

All for now.