Catherine Tanvier

Catherine Tanvier was a French tennis player who played professionally from 1983 to 2000. Tanvier achieved a career-best singles ranking of #20 in the world in September 1984, and a doubles ranking of #16 in the world in December 1986. She played on France’s Fed Cup team from 1981 to 1988.

Tanvier won the girls’ singles title at Wimbledon in 1982 with a straight sets victory over Helena Suková. Between July 1981 and March 1995 Tanvier won three singles titles and 11 doubles titles on the ITF Circuit. On the WTA Tour she won just one singles title when she beat Laura Arraya at the 1983 Freiburg Open. Tanvier had more success in the doubles, winning nine titles between July 1982 and February 1992.

Tanvier competed in the singles at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics when tennis was a demonstration sport. She had victories against Gretchen Rush, Jill Hetherington, and Angeliki Kanellopoulos, before losing to Sabrina Goleš in the semi-finals to finish in joint-third place. At Grand Slams Tanvier reached the singles fourth round at all four tournaments apart from the US Open. Her best performance came in the doubles when she and Ivanna Madruga reached the semi-finals of the 1983 French Open.

After her tennis career Tanvier wrote two biographies, the first one published in 2007, and the second in 2013. In 2010 she had a lead role in Jean-Luc Godard’s movie Film Socialisme, which was screened at the Cannes Film Festival.