Japanese Star Kimiko Date Returns

TOKYO, Japan - This decade there has been another Japanese woman making the headlines back home, but in the 1990s it was Kimiko Date who led her nation in the tennis world, winning seven singles titles on the Sony Ericsson WTA Tour and making it all the way up to No.4 in the rankings. She retired aged 26 at the end of the 1996 season, but now - nearly a dozen years later - she has come back for a piece of the action, and is enjoying every minute of it.

No other Japanese player has achieved the same level of success - at least in singles - as Date did in the first phase of her career. In addition to her seven titles she had 18 wins over Top 10 players (including one over a reigning world No.1, beating Steffi Graf in Fed Cup play in 1996) and spent 153 non-consecutive weeks in that elite herself. She reached the semifinals at three of the four Grand Slams and was a two-time quarterfinalist at the other. The only other Japanese player near the same level of success is Ai Sugiyama, who has been as high as No.8 in singles (although she has made it to No.1 in the world in doubles).

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