Kirsten "Flipper" Flipkens (; born 10 January 1986) is a Belgian professional tennis player. She has a career-high ranking of No. 13 by the Women's Tennis Association (WTA). Flipkens has won one singles title on the WTA Tour, winning the 2012 Tournoi de Québec, as well as seven doubles titles. She also won 13 singles and two doubles titles on the ITF Women's Circuit, and one singles title on the WTA Challenger Tour. She had success as a junior, winning the girls' doubles title at the 2002 US Open and the singles titles at the 2003 Wimbledon Championships and the 2003 US Open. Her best Grand Slam performance as a senior was at the 2013 Wimbledon Championships, where she reached the semifinal. In the same year, she was crowned Sportswoman of the Year at the Belgian Sport Awards. In 2016, Flipkens entered her first Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro and made it to the third round in singles. She is also the Belgian player who has played the most years in Fed Cup (16 years as of 2019). For this reason, she received the Fed Cup Commitment Award in 2016. Early life Flipkens was born on 10 January 1986 in Geel, Belgium as the only child of a car dealer and a housewife. She began playing tennis at four years old. Flipkens played tennis, football, volleyball and basketball before eventually deciding to pursue a career as a tennis player at the age of 12. She then went to the tennis academy in Wilrijk where she became friends with Kim Clijsters. At the age of 17, after winning Wimbledon and the US Open as a junior, she dropped out of school to continue her career as a professional tennis player. She speaks Dutch, English, French and German. One of her trademarks is her prescription glasses, which she needs to wear due to being near-sighted. Junior career In 2001, Flipkens won the bronze medal at the European Youth Olympic Festival in Murcia, Spain. In 2002, Flipkens and Elke Clijsters won the US Open girls' doubles title, beating Shadisha Robsinon and Tory Zawacki in the final with 6–1, 6–3. In 2003, Flipkens won the Wimbledon Championships in girls' singles, beating Anna Chakvetadze 6–4, 3–6, 6–3 and the US Open in girls' singles, defeating Michaëlla Krajicek, 6–3, 7–5. Following her two wins in two major juniors events, Flipkens was selected to join the