Steffi_Carruthers
Steffi Carruthers
Samoan tennis player
Steffi Faasusivaitele Hearthington Carruthers (born 24 May 1993) is a Samoan former tennis player. She is the first Samoan woman to play professional tennis and the first Pacific Oceanian player to win a professional tournament.[1][2]
Carruthers is from the village of Vailima, and was educated at Vaiala Beach School and Samoa College.[3] and has played tennis since the age of 5, and competed in her first international tournament at the age of 10.[4] She is named after German tennis player Steffi Graf.[3][4]
Carruthers has career-high WTA rankings of 662 in singles and 556 in doubles. In her career, she won two ITF titles in doubles.
Playing for Pacific Oceania in Fed Cup, Carruthers has a win-loss record of 11–11.
Carruthers began training to become a professional in 2012,[5][6] and played her first professional season in 2014.[7] She later competed in the 2017 Pacific Mini Games in Port Vila, Vanuatu, winning gold in the doubles,[8] gold in the singles,[9] silver in the mixed doubles, and bronze in the women's team events. At the 2019 Pacific Games in Apia she won silver in the women's team event.
In 2016 she was nominated as Sports Woman of the Year in the annual SASNOC sports awards.[4][10]
