Gustavo Kuerten Biography

Country: BRA
Birth Date: 9/10/1976
Birthplace: Florianopolis, Brazil
Residence: Florianopolis, Brazil
Height: 6' 3'' (1.91 m)
Weight: 178 lbs. (80.7 kg)
Plays: Right-handed
Year Turned Pro: Pro (1995)

Kuerten was born in Florianópolis in southern Brazil to a family of German descent.

Kuerten is also known as "Guga", an affectionate nickname which is a common abbreviation of the name "Gustavo" in Portuguese-speaking countries.

He began playing tennis when he was six, an early start to a life and career marked by family tragedy. His father, a former amateur tennis player, died of a heart attack in 1985 while umpiring a junior tennis match in Florianópolis, when Kuerten was only eight years old. His youngest brother suffered prolonged oxygen deprivation and consequently irreparable brain damage during birth, and as a result suffered from mental retardation and severe physical disability until his death in 2007. Kuerten was deeply affected by his brother's daily struggles, later donating the entire prize money from one tournament he has won every year of his professional career so far to a hometown NGO that provides assistance for people suffering from similar disabilities. He gave every trophy he won to his younger brother as a souvenir, including the three miniature replicas of the French Open men's singles trophy.

As a young player, Kuerten was heavily influenced by Oscar Wegner, then teaching in Florianópolis, who coached him for eight years. When he was 14 years old, Kuerten met Larri Passos who would be his coach for the following 15 years. Passos convinced Kuerten and his family that the youth was talented enough to make a living out of playing tennis. The two started traveling all over the world to participate in junior tournaments. Kuerten turned professional in 1995.

After two years as a professional, Kuerten rose to the position of no. 2 player in Brazil, second only to Fernando Meligeni, and had his then highest point by helping the Brazilian Davis Cup team defeat Austria in 1996 and reach the competition's first division, the World Group. Following his unexpected victory in the 1997 French Open, Kuerten had a difficult year and a half, adjusting to his sudden fame and the pressure of being expected to win. 1998 was the worst year in his career that was not related to injuries (in that year, Kuerten played beneath his potential, despite not being hindered by physical problems).

The pressure for him to become an "ambassador" for tennis in Brazil was made evident after his early defeat to a then unknown Marat Safin in the 1998 French Open: the entire body of Brazilian journalists that had been dispatched to Paris to cover the event immediately returned home, leaving the rest of the tournament unaccounted for in Brazil. Like many South Americans his favorite court surface is clay. He has won three Grand Slam titles, all of them at the French Open, played on the clay courts of Roland Garros. He won these titles in 1997, 2000 and 2001. Kuerten became the No. 1 player in the world in 2000 using his unique serve and strong ground strokes. Kuerten embraces the baseline style of play, with heavily topspun ground strokes and a solid serve that enables him to wear down his opponent from the back of the court. His unique "grunt" when he strikes the ball is recognised by millions of fans around the world. "Kuerten represents Brazil, in the Davis Cup competition, but in the past few years his seasons have been plagued by injuries. Kuerten is one of the most widely recognised and popular tennis players on the ATP tour.

1997 At the 1997 French Open, he became the first Brazilian to win a Grand Slam singles title since Maria Ester Bueno last single title at 1966 U.S. Open. Victories over three former champions: Thomas Muster (3rd round), Yevgeny Kafelnikov (quarterfinals) and Sergi Bruguera (final) made him the second-lowest ranked Grand Slam Champion (ranked 66th) and this led to him entering the ATP top 20. 1999 In 1999, he became one of 3 South Americans to complete the year in the top 10 in all the history of the ATP rankings. He reached the quarterfinals at the French Open. At Wimbledon, he became the first Brazilian to reach the quarterfinals since Thomaz Koch in 1967. He was defeated by Andre Agassi in the quarterfinals, but had lost just one set until that stage.

In July, he defeated Sebastien Grosjean 9-7 in the fifth set of the Davis Cup quarterfinal between Brazil and France. That match lasted 4 hours and 43 minutes. He also became the first Brazilian to qualify for the ATP World Championship (today the known as ATP Tennis Masters Cup, which is exclusive to the eight best ranked players in the calendar year). 2000 Won his second French Open title and became the first South American to finish the year as World No. 1 in the history of the ATP rankings (since 1973). It was a close contest with Marat Safin at the year's last event, the Tennis Masters Cup (in its first year under that name) in Lisbon, Portugal, with one loss meaning that Safin would have been No. 1. In order to finish the year as the world No. 1 player, Kuerten did what many critics had deemed impossible (for him to do): beat Pete Sampras and Andre Agassi in back-to-back matches on an indoor carpet court. He broke an eight-year hold of players from the USA on the year-end No. 1 position. He also became the first South American to finish in Top 5 in consecutive years since Guillermo Vilas of Argentina in 1977-78. 2001 In 2001, he won his third French Open crown, joining former greats Björn Borg (6), Ivan Lendl (3) and Mats Wilander (3) with three or more French Open titles in the Open Era. His road to the title was not uneventful: Kuerten saved a match point against Fourth Round opponent Michael Russell.

He also won the biggest hardcourt title of his career in August at the Cincinnati Masters, where he defeated Patrick Rafter in the final. He led the ATP in prize money for the second straight year, with USD $4,091,004. 2004 In an injury-ridden year, Kuerten still managed to win one ATP Tour title, which he did at home, by winning the Brasil Open for the second time. In that year, the tournament had been moved from September to February, and the surface had been changed from hard to clay (all this was done as a result of a compromise with the Buenos Aires Open, in Argentina, and the Viña del Mar Open, in Chile, so as to tighten up a clear South American tournament circuit). With his victory, Kuerten became the only player so far to have won the title on both surfaces and dates (he had won the previous version of the tournament in 2002). In addition to that, the one other noteworthy event in Kuerten's season was the fact that he was responsible for the only defeat suffered by Roger Federer in a Grand Slam event in that year. Kuerten's only previous encounter against Federer on clay (Hamburg Masters 2002) had resulted in a win for Federer, with the then emerging Swiss player handing the established French Opn champion a bagel set.

When they met again in the third round at Roland Garros in 2004, it was Federer who was in a dominant form and was expected to win handily against the injury-ridden Kuerten. Instead, it was Kuerten who overpowered and dominated Federer and sent him off in straight sets (6-4 6-4 6-4). Since Federer went on to win three of the four Grand Slam events of the year and had played well enough on clay in 2004 to win the Hamburg Masters Series event (defeating in the final the best clay player of the tour in the moment, Argentina's Guillermo Coria), some "credit" Kuerten with preventing Federer from completing a Grand Slam in 2004 (which would have been only the fourth time in all of men's tennis history).

On September 1, Kuerten announced that he would be withdrawing from the ATP Tour for an indefinite period of time, in order to undergo detailed exams of his operated hip, which had reportedly started to bother him again. He did not play again for the rest of the year. 2005 In February 2005, Kuerten announced his return in the Valencia Open, in Spain, which he would enter thanks to his ATP protected rank (a fictional ranking designed to help injured players: Kuerten would be able to enter automatically in as many as eight tournaments without the need of a wildcard or playing qualifying matches).

On March 15, 2005, Kuerten announced that Larri Passos, his coach of 15 years, would no longer be his coach as of his return to the tour at the Valencia Open. Reportedly, the decision to break up the partnership was harmonius and mutual, since Passos had expressed his unwillingness to continue travelling the world after the birth of his first daughter. Kuerten also announced that he had no plans of hiring a new coach at the moment.

This has led to speculation that he could be attempting to emulate the (rather successful) experience of Roger Federer in the 2004 season. After a slow start, however, Kuerten decided to hire temporarily Argentine former player Henry Gumy, who started coaching him in the Italian Open 2005 and would continue to do so in the weeks leading up to the French Open and during Kuerten's campaign in the Grand Slam event. After a poor campaign at Roland Garros (lost in the first round), Kuerten decided to retain Gumy's orientation for an undisclosed amount of time. Kuerten has also announced that he would not be playing any tournaments in the following months, with the exception of Davis Cup matches.

He would return only in the tournaments that serve as preparation for the U.S. Open (but he did not play the two Tennis Masters Series events in North America). Following a second round defeat at the US Open (despite a promising first round win), Kuerten focused solely on his Davis Cup matches for the remainder of the season, which also resulted in 2005 being the first year without a title for Kuerten since 1996 (his second year as a professional player). Kuerten also decided to retain Gumy as his coach, apparently abandoning the idea of playing in the Tour without a coach.