Anett Kontaveit was born on December 24, 1995, in Tallinn, Estonia, to Ulle Milk and Andrus Kontaveit. She was an accomplished junior player. Her achievements as a junior player include a run to the quarterfinal of the French Open and the final of the US Open, becoming the first Estonian to achieve that.
After registering her first victory on the WTA Tour at the 2014 Swedish Open against Alize Cornet, Kontaveit made her mark with a run to the fourth round of the 2015 US Open. She defeated Casey Dellacqua, Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, and Madison Brengle before falling to Venus Williams.
In 2017, Kontaveit had a major breakthrough on the WTA Tour. She won her first title on the grass courts in ‘S-Hertogenbosch, beating Natalia Vikhlyantseva in the final. The Estonian also reached two other finals. These were both in Switzerland in Biel Bienne and Gstaad. She finished as the runner-up on both occasions.
In 2018, she reached the maiden WTA 1000 final in Wuhan. Her run in China included avenging her defeat to Stephens in the opening round. Aryna Sabalenka proved to be too strong in the final, leading to Kontaveit losing 3-6, 3-6.
After a solid 2019 season, Kontaveit made her only appearance in a Grand Slam quarterfinal at the 2020 Australian Open. She had a thrilling 6-7, 7-5, 7-5 triumph against the future world No. 1 Iga Swiatek in the fourth round before being soundly beaten 1-6, 1-6 by Simona Halep.
Kontaveit had her most successful season in 2021. She won four titles and finished the year as the world No. 7. Her titles all came in the second half of the season in Cleveland, Ostrava, Moscow, and Transylvania. The Estonian’s run in Transylvania saw her beat Simona Halep in the final.
Three more finals followed in 2022, although Kontaveit was the runner-up in all of them. The most notable of these was her second WTA 1000 final in Doha. Unfortunately, Iga Swiatek was far too strong in the final, and Kontaveit lost 2-6, 0-6.
Sadly, Kontaveit retired from the sport at the age of just 27, making her final appearance at the 2023 Wimbledon Championships. This was due to her diagnosis of lumbar disc degeneration.
