Katarzyna Nowak

Katarzyna Nowak (born 13 January 1969) is a former Polish professional tennis player.

She is the first Polish female tennis player in Open Era who reached Top 50 on the WTA ranking. Her highest career singles ranking is world No. 47 achieved in September 1995. She has been playing on the tour from 1988 to the end of 1998.

She has also been the first female Polish tennis player to represent her country at the Olympics Games when she took part in the 1992 Barcelona Olympics Games.

Katarzyna is one of the best female tennis players in Polish history. She is considered as a precursor of professional tennis in her country. As she was competing in an extremely unfavourable political and economic situation in the hard years of communist rules and the early transformation period.

Katarzyna Nowak is the only Polish tennis player whose the whole career was lasting in one of the most difficult periods in Poland history (martial law 1981-1983, political and economical sanctions, fall of comunism and hard first years of transformation) and achieved so much.

She is also recognized as a symbol of the era of the Polish tennis breakthrough, which occurred following the fall of communism and the political transformation of the country from the Polish People's Republic to the Third Republic of Poland. Her results and success helped to create new professional tennis structures. Provided by Wikipedia