2018 - ROME - ITALY

Veni, Vidi, Vinci: A look back at Roberta Vinci's brilliant career in pictures

Amidst a celebratory atmosphere on the Stadio Pietrangeli, Roberta Vinci played the final match of her career in front of her home crowd at the Internazionali BNL d'Italia today. For two decades, the Italian has dazzled and delighted fans with her flair and style - revisit some of her finest moments here.

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A standout junior, Roberta Vinci racked up doubles trophies such as the U16 Avvenire in 1998 (pictured) and Roland Garros 1999 alongside Flavia Pennetta; 17 years later, they would meet in a Slam final (Tennis Europe)
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Vinci, pictured in Doha in 2004 in her first-round loss to Elena Likhovtseva, cracked the Top 100 as a 21-year-old in June that year (Getty)
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Eastbourne 2005 was the site of Vinci's first ever win over a Top 10 player, when she defeated the 2004 Roland Garros champion Anastasia Myskina 6-4, 7-6(3) in the quarterfinals (Getty)
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Vinci would be on the winning Fed Cup team four times - and her first taste of team glory, winning the deciding doubles rubber with Francesca Schiavone, came when Italy upset Belgium in the 2006 final (Getty)
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Vinci's maiden title came in Bogota in 2007, where she beat compatriot Tathiana Garbin 6-7(5), 6-4, 0-3 ret. in the final (Getty)
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A second title followed in Barcelona in 2009, with Vinci defeating Maria Kirilenko 6-0, 6-4 in the final (Getty)
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Vinci was part of a golden generation of Italian tennis; each member of the 2009 Fed Cup-winning team (Vinci, Pennetta, Schiavone and Sara Errani) would go on to play a Grand Slam final (Getty)
08 /23
Vinci's first win over a World No.1 was in Toronto in 2011, when she beat Caroline Wozniacki 6-4, 7-5 in the second round before going on to make the quarterfinals - a run that enabled her to break the Top 20 for the first time (Getty)
09 /23
Thirteen years after she won the girls' doubles title at Roland Garros, Vinci won her first senior Slam title in women's doubles alongside Sara Errani, beating Maria Kirilenko and Nadia Petrova 4-6, 6-4, 6-2 in the final (Getty)
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A second Slam followed for the charismatic Italians at the US Open that year when they beat Lucie Hradecka and Andrea Sestini Hlavackova in the final - and hit No.1 a month later (Getty)
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In singles, Vinci was coming into her own as a late bloomer: at Wimbledon 2012, playing her 31st Grand Slam main draw at the age of 29, Vinci defeated Mirjana Lucic-Baroni to make the second week of a major for the first time (Getty)
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One Slam later, Vinci went one better, stunning No.2 seed Agnieszka Radwanska 6-1, 6-4 - her first Top 10 victory at a major - to make the US Open quarterfinals (Getty)
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One of Vinci's most spectacular and emphatic victories was her 6-0, 6-0 demolition of Ana Ivanovic in the second round of Montréal in 2012 (Getty)
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Vinci captured her eighth singles title in Katowice in 2013, defeating Petra Kvitova 7-6(2), 6-1 in the final - one of six Top 10 victories she would score that year
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Vinci's fourth and final Fed Cup trophy came in 2013, when Italy shut Russia out 4-0 in the final; Vinci holds the Italian records for most doubles wins (a perfect 18-0 record) and years of participation in Fed Cup (Getty)
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Vinci and Errani continued to dominate women's doubles at the start of 2013, defeating Ashleigh Barty and Casey Dellacqua 6-2, 3-6, 6-2 to add the Australian Open to their haul (Getty)
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Vicnci and Errani became just the fifth pair to complete the career Grand Slam in doubles at Wimbledon in 2014, sealed with a 6-1, 6-3 win over Timea Babos and Kristina Mladenovic (Getty)
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Vinci's most famous victory was at the US Open in 2015 when she mounted a brilliant comeback to oust World No.1 Serena Williams 2-6, 6-4, 6-4 in the semifinals (Getty)
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The result ended Williams's shot at the calendar-year Grand Slam that year - and put Vinci into her first Slam singles final at the age of 32 (Getty)
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Appropriately enough, it would be the first all-Italian Slam final in the Open Era with Vinci facing her erstwhile junior doubles partner Flavia Pennetta - and though Vinci fell 7-6(4), 6-2, it was still a special moment for both players (Getty)
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Though Pennetta would retire a few months after that landmark final, Vinci would keep going, scoring her biggest ever title in St. Petersburg in February 2016 - and breaking the Top 10 to boot (Roberta Vinci/Facebook)
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All four of Vinci's Slam quarterfinals in singles would come at the US Open, and in 2016 she played her final one, falling 7-5, 6-0 to Angelique Kerber (Getty)
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The final match of Vinci's career took place before her adoring home fans in Rome - and though she fell 2-6, 6-0, 6-3 to Aleksandra Krunic, they had plenty of love to give her (Getty)

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