career

18 years until today

The beginning of my career as a pro

I officially started my career as a pro in 1996. At my very first Challenger tournament in Weiden, Germany, I surprisingly reached the finals after beating players like Carsten Arriens and Oliver Gross. Two months later, I received my first wild card for one of the big tournaments on the ATP Tour in Indianapolis. I made it to the quarter finals, where I got the chance to play on centre court. My opponent for the first time: Pete Sampras. After all, I managed to win 7 games when losing 3:6, 4:6.

Shortly afterwards there was another first time: the US Open, my first Grand Slam tournament at senior level. In the first round, I had to play Michael Stich and lost in four sets.

Youngest player in the top 50

Finally, it all went very fast. As a surprise for everybody, I made it to the semi finals in Hamburg. At the age of 19. On October 20th, 1997, I was ranked as number 43 in the world. This meant I was the youngest player in the top 50. In the previous week, I had reached the finals in Lyon. However, I had lost to the Frenchman Fabrice Santoro whom I found very unpleasant to play.

Fourth time is a charm

I had to make it into ATP finals 4 times until I finally won my first title on tour. My opponent in this final in Memphis was Jim Courier, the former number 1 in the world. When winning the first title, the ATP awards you with a kind of certificate.

Meanwhile, I have won 5 tournaments - especially due to a very good year in 2001.

2001 - my most successful year so far

In fact, 2001 was a quaint year. I had split up with my travelling-coach David 'Red' Amye. By the time summer came, I had tried 3 different coaches: Gavin Hopper, Harold Salomon, and Sven Groenefeld. In January, I won the title in Adelaide but after that, my tennis got worse and worse. The low point was losing against Wayne Black in the first round at Wimbledon.

I went back to 'Red'. Above all, it was his merit that I enjoyed playing tennis again. And with this joy came success, too. Between August 20th and October 22nd I had my (so far) best series: I only lost 2 out of 22 matches and won three tournaments. In Vienna and Stuttgart, I was even successful in two consecutive tournaments. In the end I only just missed out on the Masters Cup ticket. However, I still went to Sydney as a stand-by player.

After all this success the year 2002 went totally different. Me reaching the finals at Rome was adumbrated by my parents' terrible motor-bike accident. Even though I reached the semi finals at the Canadian Open, 2002 was a year without winning a title and with lots of injury-related problems in my right shoulder. On December 18th, a tendon in the front rotator-head of my shoulder (as it is called) tore apart. The date of my comeback on the tour is still unclear.