| Biography | Clare Jacqueline Wood (born 8 March 1968 in Zululand District Municipality, Natal Province, South Africa) is a former British number tennis player from Great Britain who began playing professionally in 1984 and retired in 1998. Over the course of her career she reached a career-high singles ranking of world no.77 in singles (achieved 2 May 1994) and no.59 in doubles (achieved 21 October 1996). Wood won one ITF singles title, six in doubles and also won a WTA doubles title at the Wellington Classic having been the runner-up there the previous year. Her greatest success in singles at Grand Slam level came in 1991 when she reached the third round of the Australian Open. She also reached the third round in doubles at three of the four Grand Slam events during her career (the exception being the US Open where she never passed the second round) and reached the quarterfinals in the mixed doubles event at Wimbledon in 1995. At the time of her retirement she had a 212223 singles win-loss record with notable scalps including Jo Durie and Mary Pierce.
After her retirement from professional competition, Wood became a tennis officiator. From 1999 until 2002 she was a tournament supervisor on the WTA Tour and from 2002 onwards she was an assistant referee at Wimbledon where she was also fully responsible for the qualifying and junior events. In 2004, she was an assistant referee at the 2004 Olympic tennis event and in 2008 it was announced that she would fulfil the role of Tennis Competition Manager at the 2012 Olympic Games. |