Biography            

Career Highlights

Career in Review

Junior Career
It was Tamira’s mother who first got her interested in tennis. Francoise was a club-level player and was always taking Tamira along to the court when she went to play tennis. Suitably inspired by her mothers antics at the age of 4 and a half Tamira stepped down from her usual vantage point in the umpires chair and started playing. Pretty soon tennis started to win out over other interests (playing the piano and horseback riding) and she started to develop her game in a group of five kids with her trainer Matey Pampulov in her home club TCD Dornbirn.
At the age of seven she won her first provincial girls under 10 championship. After that she went on to play some of the bigger tournaments in Austria and at the age of 11 she won the Austrian girls under 12 Championship in both singles and doubles. At that time she also played her first international girls under 12 tournaments.
At the age of twelve she won the Austrian under 14 girls championship in both singles and doubles. Then later in the same year she also managed to win both the singles and the doubles of the Austrian girls under 16 championship making her the youngest player in the history of Austrian tennis to win in that particular age bracket.
She started to play international U14 winning some titles and achieved her best ranking in ETA U 14 of no. 2 at the end of 2003. Next year she started to compete in the ITF U18 and achieved a best ranking of 20, twice winning the French Riviera International Junior Open in 2005 and 2006 as well as the 26th International Raiffeisen Spring Bowl in 2005. In 2005 she reached the girls finals at Wimbledon making her the youngest unseeded player ever where she lost in straight sets to talented Polish youngster Agnieszka Radwanska. The following year she continued to impress in the junior grand slams reaching the quarters of the Australian and French open and the semis of Wimbledon before coming agonisingly close to winning the US Open going down in three closely fought sets to Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova. Her final act as a junior was a last 16 defeat to the other Radwanska (Urszula) at the Australian Open in 2007.
It was in fact as early as 2003 when Tamira and her father (a squash trainer) first made contact with coach Larri Passos. They were sitting in a New York restaurant when Larri Passos and Gustavo Kuerten walked in. Ariff introduced his 12-year-old daughter and asked for a picture. As soon as he heard that Passos had split from Kuerten (in March 2005) he made a handful of phone calls to Brazil, begging Passos to coach his daughter. Ariff said: “Larri has always been in my heart for what he did for Guga (Kuerten) and I wanted to tell him about my Tamira.” His persistence eventually paid off and in November 2006 Passos flew out to Austria and began working with Tamira and played a crucial part in her meteoric rise up the rankings the following year before they (amicably) went their separate ways at the end of the season.

2005
First pro season highlighted by first titles on ITF Circuit in singles and doubles (w/Ancic) at $25K ITF/Sofia-BUL, as well as Tour main draw debut at Linz, reaching 2r (as WC, d. Vesnina 75 third set in 1r to become youngest player to win a Tour main draw match all season; l. to Ivanovic); also member of Fed Cup team that l. to France in World Group 1r but d. Switzerland in World Group Play-offs.

2006
Season highlighted by first Tour title in third Tour singles main draw, at Portoroz (as qualifier, d. No.6 seed Camerin in final; at 15 years, 9 months and 18 days, was seventh-youngest singles titlist in Tour history; at No.259, was also third-lowest ranked singles titlist in Tour history); in two other Tour main draws, reached 2r at Istanbul (as qualifier; d. Molik in 1r, falling to No.6 seed Castaño in 3s) and fell 1r at Linz (as WC; l. to Dechy in 3s); fell in Bogotá and Zürich qualifying; member of Fed Cup team that l. to Spain in World Group 1r.

2007
First Top 100 season for youngest player in Top 280, highlighted by reaching first two Grand Slam 4r at Wimbledon (d. No.17 seed Golovin and No.12 seed Dementieva en route; l. to No.5 seed Kuznetsova) and US Open (d. No.24 seed Schiavone and No.11 seed Schnyder 46 64 76(1) en route, having trailed 4-1 second set; l. to No.6 seed Chakvetadze); wins over world No.17 Golovin, No.13 Dementieva and No.12 Schnyder were first three career Top 20 wins; debuted at all four Grand Slams, also making 2r at Australian Open (as qualifier; l. to No.22 seed Zvonareva) and Roland Garros (l. to top seed and eventual champion Henin 75 61, having trailed 5-0 first set); contested 10 more Tour main draws, reaching 3r once (Birmingham) and 2r five times (incl. Dubai as qualifier; l. to top seed and eventual champion Henin 46 75 61); fell 1r four times; made Top 100 debut on March 19 (rose from No.101 to No.100) and simultaneous Top 50 and Top 40 debuts on July 9 (after Wimbledon; rose from No.54 to No.35); next-youngest player on November 12 year-end rankings was No.281 Pavlyuchenkova (her conqueror in the 2006 US Open girls' singles final); went 2-0 during Austria's 4-1 Fed Cup World Group II win over Australia and 0-2 during their 4-1 Fed Cup World Group I Play-off loss to Israel; withdrew from Istanbul w/back injury and from Bali w/knee injury.