Sara Errani (Italian: [ˈsaːra erˈraːni]; born 29 April 1987) is an Italian professional tennis player. Errani is one of only seven women who have completed a Career Golden Slam in doubles. She is an Olympic Games gold medalist, a former doubles world No. 1, ten-time major champion in doubles and mixed doubles and a finalist in singles. With 9 singles, 36 doubles and 5 mixed doubles titles, she is the Italian tennis player with the highest number of titles. Errani reached a career-high singles ranking of world No. 5 on 20 May 2013. She is currently a top-10 player in doubles and the coach of Jasmine Paolini.
Errani's breakthrough season occurred in 2012. At the Australian Open, she reached the quarterfinals in singles (the first time she advanced past the third round in a Grand Slam singles draw) and was a finalist in doubles. Known as a clay-court specialist, Errani won three titles on clay going into the 2012 French Open, where she reached the finals in both the singles (becoming the second Italian woman to ever reach a Grand Slam singles final, with Francesca Schiavone being the first at the 2010 French Open) and doubles tournaments, winning the doubles title with her partner Roberta Vinci. They also won the doubles titles at the 2012 US Open, and the 2013 and 2014 Australian Open. By winning the 2014 Wimbledon Women's Doubles title, Errani and Vinci became only the fifth pair in tennis history to complete a Career Grand Slam. She became the seventh player in the Open Era to achieve a Golden Slam, winning the Olympics with Jasmine Paolini. She won three times the WTA Awards as best doubles team with Vinci and once in 2024 with Paolini.
Her achievement in reaching the 2012 US Open singles semifinals leaves Wimbledon as the only Grand Slam tournament in which Errani has yet to make the quarterfinals in singles. She also made the semifinals at the 2013 French Open, the quarterfinals at the 2014 French Open, 2014 US Open, and 2015 French Open, and qualified to the WTA Finals twice in 2012 and 2013. In 2017, Errani was banned from playing for ten months due to a failed drug test. At the 2024 Summer Olympics, she was the only player along with fellow countryman Andrea Vavassori to qualify and play at the same time in singles, doubles and mixed doubles. Her partnership with Vavassori has proven successful, the pair winning four mixed doubles major titles, including in their first participations at 2024 US Open and 2025 French Open.
Errani was the year-end number-one doubles player in both 2013 and 2014. She held the top ranking for a combined total of 87 weeks, first achieved on 10 September 2012. She entered the top 10 in doubles on 11 June 2012, remaining there for 94 straight weeks.
Errani was born in Bologna to Giorgio, a greengrocer, and Fulvia, a pharmacist. At the age of 12, her father sent her to the Nick Bollettieri Tennis Academy in Florida. At 16, she moved to Valencia, Spain to be coached by Pablo Lozano and David Andres.
Errani qualified for her first event at the $10k Cagliari event in her native Italy in 2002, where she lost to Sun Tiantian. She continued to compete in the ITF, where her best performance of the year was a semifinal appearance in Zaton, losing in straight sets to Lenka Tvarošková. She continued to participate mainly on the ITF circuit, where she won her first tournament over Lucia Jiménez in Melilla, Spain in February 2005.
The first WTA Tour title of her career was in the Internazionali Femminili di Palermo where she defeated Mariya Koryttseva in the final. On 27 July 2008, she captured her second career title in two weeks, defeating Anabel Medina Garrigues. She has also won six doubles titles.
In 2009, Errani was the runner-up at two WTA tournaments, in Palermo and Portorož, as the defending champion in both. Errani was defeated in the first round of the French Open by defending champion Ana Ivanovic, whom she beat in the third round three years later.
Errani reached the third round in every major except the French Open in 2010, where she lost in the first round.
Errani was a member of Fed Cup-winning Italian team in 2009 and 2010. In February 2011, she reached the finals of the Pattaya Open where she was defeated by Daniela Hantuchová.
2012: Major singles final, doubles No. 1
At the beginning of 2012, Errani decided to change her racquet, switching from Wilson to Babolat, opting for a heavier and slightly longer model than the last, allowing for more power and better reach. This change caused her to return her $30,000 endorsement fee to Wilson. However, she and several commentators cite the new racquet as a reason for her improved game and her entry into the top 10 of the WTA rankings. In the first five months of 2012, she won three singles titles, earning over $1.3 million in prize money. Errani dubbed her new racquet "Excalibur", named after the sword of King Arthur.
At the Australian Open Errani advanced to her first Grand Slam quarterfinals, defeating Valeria Savinykh, Nadia Petrova, Sorana Cîrstea, and Zheng Jie en route, before losing to Petra Kvitová. Her ranking jumped to world No. 33. At the Abierto Monterrey Open, she was the second seed and reached the semifinals, losing to eventual champion Tímea Babos, but she triumphed on the clay in Acapulco as the third seed, winning her third career title. She defeated fellow Italians Roberta Vinci, and second seed Flavia Pennetta in her last two matches.
As the seventh seed at the Barcelona Ladies Open, Errani stormed to her fourth career title and second of the year, not dropping a set, beating second seeded Julia Görges in the quarterfinals, Carla Suárez Navarro in the semifinals, and Dominika Cibulková in the finals. Afterwards, her ranking rose to world No. 28. In the Fed Cup semifinals against the Czech Republic, Errani lost to Petra Kvitová, but beat Andrea Hlaváčková, with Italy losing the tie. On 7 May, Errani won the Budapest Grand Prix, tying country woman Roberta Vinci for the most titles won by an Italian female in a year at three.
Her performance continued to improve when she reached the final of the French Open. En route she defeated Casey Dellacqua, Melanie Oudin, and former French Open winners Ana Ivanovic and Svetlana Kuznetsova. She secured a place in the semifinals by eliminating the German tenth seed Angelique Kerber, her first win over a current top-10 player. In the semifinals, she overcame the reigning US Open champion and 2010 French Open finalist Samantha Stosur to reach her first Grand Slam singles final opposite Maria Sharapova. Errani lost in the final but her progress in this tournament helped her achieve the No. 10 ranking.
In addition to her singles wins, Errani also won six doubles titles with Roberta Vinci including the Madrid Open, the Internazionali d'Italia, and the French Open. She and Vinci also made the finals of the Indian Wells Open and the Australian Open.
At Wimbledon, Errani lost 6-0, 6-4 in the third round to Yaroslava Shvedova, suffering the loss of the first, and to date only, golden set (a set in which one player wins every point) in a major in the open era, and only the second ever in a top-level tournament. In July, at the Italiacom Open, Errani, without losing a set, won her fourth title of the year, the sixth in her career. She defeated the Czech Barbora Záhlavová-Strýcová (seeded eighth) in the final. Errani then lost in the first round of the singles competition at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, as well as the first round of the mixed doubles (with Andreas Seppi). However, she and Vinci reached the quarterfinals of the women's doubles.
She played the New Haven Open as the fourth seed. She reached the semifinals by beating fifth seed Marion Bartoli. She lost in the semifinals to Petra Kvitová. At the US Open, Errani had a slow start by beating Garbiñe Muguruza in three sets. However, she easily defeated the Russians Vera Dushevina and Olga Puchkova. She lost only three games in these two rounds. In the fourth round, she defeated sixth seed, Angelique Kerber. In the quarterfinals, she defeated her doubles partner Vinci to come into the semifinals, where she lost in straight sets to eventual champion Serena Williams. With this result, she was the first Italian woman in the Open Era to reach the semifinals of the US Open, and the first Italian woman ever to come at least into semifinals of two different majors.