Background
Zaiga Jansone was born in Riga in 1951. Her father Jānis was her first tennis coach, and in the following years she has also been coached by Serguey Andreev and future Russian Tennis Hall-of-famer Semyon Belits-Geiman.
Zaiga Jansone was born in Riga in 1951. Her father Jānis was her first tennis coach, and in the following years she has also been coached by Serguey Andreev and future Russian Tennis Hall-of-famer Semyon Belits-Geiman.
She was representing clubs Daugava (Riga), CSKA (Moscow) and ASK Group (a software company) (Riga). Zaiga"s best years in tennis encompassed the late 1960s and early 1970s. In the final game they defeated the German-American team Peaches Bartkowicz-Ingo Buding.
In 1970 she also met Morozova in the singles finals but lost 4-6, 3-6.
Jansone"s best results in open tennis tournaments where amateurs could play against world"s best professionals came in 1971. That year she reached 4th round at the Wimbledon Championships in singles (eventually losing to the sixth-seed Nancy Richey) as well as her only finals at an open event: she and Morozova lost in the finals of Kent Championships to Christine Janes and Nell Truman.
Her best result in mixed doubles came also at Wimbledon Championships two years earlier when she and Sergei Likhachev lost in 4th round to Koji Watanabe and Kazuko Sawamatsu. Zaiga Jansone-Ivanova graduated in 1981 from the Latvian State University where she was studying journalism but her further career was in coaching.
She first coached at Jurmala sport school and in 1993 started her own Zaiga Jansone-Ivanov Tennis School in the same city.
Profile at the Latvian Olympic Committee official website (Latvian).