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Zina Lynna Garrison (b. November 16 1963, in
Houston, Texas) is a former professional tennis
player from the United States. During her career,
she was a women's singles runner-up at Wimbledon
Championships|Wimbledon in 1990, a three-time
Grand Slam (tennis)|Grand Slam mixed doubles
champion, and a women's doubles Gold Medalist at
the 1988 Olympic Games. 

An African-American and the youngest of seven
children, Garrison started playing tennis at the
age of 10 and entered her first tournament at the
age of 12. Her success as a junior player quickly
made the tennis world take notice. At the age of
14 she won the national girls' 18s title. And then
in 1981, she won both the Wimbledon and U.S. Open
(tennis)|US Open junior titles and was ranked the
World No. 1 junior player.

Garrison turned professional in 1982, and skiped
her graduation at Ross Sterling High School to
compete in the French Open, her first tournament
as a professional, where she reached the
quarter-finals before being knocked-out by Martina
Navratilova.

Despite battling bulimia during her first few
years on the tour, Garrison enjoyed notable
success on-court. She reached the Australian Open
semi-finals in her first full year on the tour -
1983 - and finished the year ranked the World No.
10. She won her first top-level singles titles in
1984 at the European Indoor Championships in
Zurich. She was a Wimbledon semi-finalist in 1985,
and in 1986 she won her first tour doubles at the
Canada Masters|Canadian Open (partnering Gabriela
Sabatini). 

At the Australian Open in 1987, Garrison won the
mixed doubles (partnering Sherwood Stewart) and
finished runner-up in the women's doubles
(partnering Lori McNeil). A year later, Garrison
and Stewart captured the mixed doubles title at
Wimbledon.

At the 1988 Olympic Games in Seoul, Garrison
teamed with Pam Shriver to win the women's doubles
Gold Medal for the United States, defeating Jana
Novotna and Helena Sukova of Czechoslovakia in the
final 4-6, 6-2, 10-8. And Garrison defeated
Shriver in the quarter-finals of the singles
event, where she won a Bronze Medal.

In 1989, Garrison defeated Chris Evert 7-6, 6-2 in
the quarter-finals of the US Open in what proved
to be the final match of Evert's career. Garrison
subsequently lost to Navratilova in the
semi-finals. She finished 1989 ranked a
career-high World No. 4 in singles.

The highlight of Garrison's career came in 1990 at
Wimbledon. She defeated the French Open champion
Monica Seles in the quarter-finals and the
defending Wimbeldon champion and World No. 1
Steffi Graf in the semi-finals to reach her first
(and only) Grand Slam singles final. There she
faced Martina Navratilova who was gunning for a
record ninth women's singles title at Wimbledon,
and lost 6-4, 6-1. However Garrison claimed her
third Grand Slam mixed doubles title at Wimbledon
that year (partnering Rick Leach).

In 1992 Garrison finished runner-up in the
Australian Open women's doubles (partnering Mary
Joe Fernandez). 

Garrison retired from the professional tour in
1996. During her career, she won 14 top-level
singles titles and 20 doubles titles. 

Garrison married Willard Jackson in September
1989, however the marriage ended in divorce in
1997. Garrison relapsed into bulimia after her
divorce, and spent three days in hospital and
one-and-a-half weeks in a treatment centre
following an attempted suicide in 1999. 

Since retiring from the tour, Garrison has worked
as a television commentator and maintained active
roles in the community and in tennis. She founded
the Zina Garrison Foundation for the Homeless in
1988, and the Zina Garrison All-Court Tennis
Program, which supports inner-city tennis in
Houston, in 1992. She has also served as a member
of the United States President's Council on
Physical Fitness and Sports. 

==External links==

*wta|id=70011|name=Zina Garrison
*http://espn.go.com/classic/biography/s/Garrison_Z
ina.html ESPN biography