Akiko Kijimuta
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| Bio | She is a former professional tennis player from Japan, she played on the WTA tour from 1986 to 1992. She graduated from J. F. Oberlin University. Her younger sister, Naoko Kijimuta , is also a former professional tennis player. Her highest singles ranking is 49th. She belongs to Asahi Glass. In 1983, when she was in her third year of junior high school (age 15), she became the youngest player ever to win the women's singles title at the All Japan Tennis Championships at the age of 15 years and 4 months. She turned professional the following year in 1984, and she began her world challenge, following in the footsteps of Etsuko Inoue, the pioneer of women's tennis in Japan at the time. At the age of 16, she also competed in the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics "demonstration competition". Before tennis was officially reinstated as an Olympic sport, the women's singles was won by 15-year-old Steffi Graf of the former West Germany. It is worth noting that in 1988, in the third round of the Australian Open, the Japanese also took away set from Martina Navratilova. She reached the finals in Singapore (1989, she defeated Iwona Kuczyńska in the quarter-finals) and Brisbane (1991, she defeated, among others, Pam Shriver, Barbara Paulus, Łarysa Sawczenko-Neiland), the semi-final in Tokyo (Pan Pacific, 1990, defeated among others Lori McNeil), quarter-final in Eastbourne on grass courts (1989, defeated among others Claudia Kohde-Kilsch). She reached the fourth round at Roland Garros in 1992, where she had to face Monica Seles. Kijimuta, who was then rather at the end of her career (No. 150 WTA), drew conclusions from her last defeat against Seles in the first round of the Australian Open a few months earlier and this time put up a strong resistance to the Serbian champion. After a dramatic duel, interrupted by rainfall, she led against the world number-one-ranked player Monica Seles 4 games to 1 in the final set, but lost narrowly 1-6, 6-3, 4-6. Seles later won the entire tournament, in the final against Graf. At the same tournament, Kimiko Date was seeded for the first time in a Grand Slam tournament (14th seed), and along with Kijimuta, 2 Japanese women advanced to the 4th round. It was a big step forward for the Japanese tennis. For her Kijimuta herself, this was her last significant performance on the international stage. Less than a month later, at Wimbledon, she did not make it through the qualifying tournament. In 1993, she managed to advance to the main tournaments only three times, each time eliminating in the first round. She passed, among others eliminations in Sopot, where she defeated the future junior Wimbledon champion Aleksandra Olsza in the first match. She also remained without a win in the WTA Tour series in 1994, and her last professional duel was in the Pan Pacific qualifiers in Tokyo, losing to her sister Naoko. She also paired with her sister for the last time in doubles - at Wimbledon in 1994. Previously, the Kijimuta sisters won one ITF Women's Circuit doubles tournament in Arzachena in Italy in 1993. She retired with a 63–100 singles record. From 1984 to 1992, she represented Japan in the women's national competition, the Fed Cup (then known as the "Federation Cup"). Akiko Kijimuta won three matches, lost ten. In particular, the 1989 Federation Cup was held at the Ariake Coliseum in Tokyo, where Kijimuta defeated Catarina Lindqvist, who reached the semifinal at Wimbledon that year, in the first round match against Sweden. In her second-round match against West Germany, she challenged then-world No. 1 Steffi Graf. In 1990 she won the Beijing Asian Games where she won the individual singles championship and the team championship. After her retirement from active duty in 1994, she is currently involved in coaching junior players. |
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