12 Ai Sugiyama
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Born: 5/7/75

Nationality: Japanese

Seeded: 12

World ranking: 13

French Open best:

4th round (2003, 2000, 1995)

Recent record:

2003: 4th round

2002: 2nd round

2001: 1st round

The 28-year-old continues to enjoy the best period of her career after making a dramatic leap up the rankings last year.

Two titles and wins over Lindsay Davenport and Kim Clijsters in 2003 saw her reach a new level after 10 years on the tour.

She started off 2004 as a top-10 player and immediately showed why with victory over Nadia Petrova in the final of the Gold Coast tournament in January.

However, life at the top has been something of a struggle since, with a first round defeat to Nathalie Dechy at the Australian Open a particular disappointment.

Reaching the semi-finals in Dubai in February just about kept Sugiyama's ranking up but she has failed to win two successive matches since.

And the Japanese number one will need to match her run to the fourth round last year if she is not to slip further away from the top 10.