Nikoloz Basilashvili

Nikoloz Basilashvili (ნიკოლოზ ბასილაშვილი, ; born 23 February 1992) is a Georgian professional tennis player.

Basilashvili was born 23 February 1992 in Tbilisi, Georgia.

His father, Nodar, is a dancer of the Sukhishvili Georgian National Ballet, his mother, Natalia, worked as a physician.

He has a brother, Tengiz.

Apart from his native language he also speaks Russian and English.

Basilashvili started playing tennis at age 5.

When he was 15 his family moved to Russia.

Basilashvili played in his first ITF Junior Circuit tournament in late 2006 at the G2 Jerry Simmons Tournament.

He lost in the first qualifying round.

From 2007 to 2011 he was coached in Sacramento, California, United States and at 18 he returned to Georgia, only to uproot again and move to an academy in Turkey run by an Australian coach, Gavin Hopper.

In 2007, he managed to break through the qualifying of two G4 tournaments in Israel and a G3 in Romania.

Nikoloz lost in the Round of 16 in all of them.

Later that year, he reached his first semifinal at any junior tournament doing that in doubles for the first time at the US Junior Hard Court Championships, partnering Patrick Daciek.

In singles, he reached that round at the G4 USTA Illinois losing to Filip Krajinović, in September.

In 2008, Nikoloz won his only junior title, the G4 Tennis Express tournament, defeating Raymond Sarmiento in three sets.

The Georgian played mostly at G1 and GA tournaments that year, breaking through the qualifiers of the Eddie Herr Tennis Championship and the Orange Bowl.

He reached the round of 16 in the former and the quarterfinals in the latter.

The Orange Bowl was his last junior tournament.

He reached a career high combined (singles and doubles) of world No. 59 on 5 January 2009.

He ended his junior career with a 35–22 record on singles and 14–17 on doubles.

In 2011, Basilashvili announced that he may play for Russia, but decided to keep playing under the Georgian flag.

He has a son, Lukas who was born in 2015.

In 2015, he qualified for his first Grand Slam tournament – Roland Garros, losing in the first round to Thanasi Kokkinakis.

He also managed to qualify for Wimbledon later that year, where he beat Facundo Bagnis and 15th seed Feliciano López, advancing to the third round of a major for the first time in his career.

Additionally, he managed to qualify for the US Open, where he lost to Feliciano López in the first round in straight sets.

In 2016, he qualified for his first Australian Open, losing the first round in straight sets to Roger Federer.

Later that same year, in July, Basilashvili reached his first ATP tournament final – the Austrian Open Kitzbühel, where he lost to Paolo Lorenzi in two sets.

He recorded his first win over a Top 10 player in October when he defeated world number 10 Tomáš Berdych at the Vienna Open.

In February 2017, Basilashvili participated at the Sofia event, grabbing victories over Adrian Mannarino, 1st seed Dominic Thiem and 8th seed Martin Kližan, before losing to 3rd seed and eventual champion Grigor Dimitrov in the semifinals.

Basilashvili continued his good form at the Memphis Open, where he defeated 1st seed Ivo Karlović and went on to subsequently reach the final, losing to Ryan Harrison in straight sets.

In July 2018, he made it into the main draw of the German Open in Hamburg as a qualifier and went on to win the tournament, defeating Leonardo Mayer in the final, thereby becoming the first Georgian player since Alex Metreveli to win an ATP tournament.

In October 2018, Basilashvili won his second ATP title at the China Open by defeating world No. 4 Juan Martín del Potro in the final.

He reached a career-high ATP singles ranking of world No. 16 on 27 May 2019.

In 2019, Basilashvili completed his first title defense by winning the German Open for a second successive year.

On 21 May 2020, Basilashvili was arrested on a charge of physically assaulting ex-wife Neka Dorokashvili in front of their son.

Dorokashvili elaborated at a later point, alleging that Basilashvili "declared her as a subordinate" and treated her in a derogatory way.

Tblisi court released Basilashvili on a bail of 100,000 Georgian Lari (around US$36,300) after his first arrest, however he since attended a trial hearing remotely.

His legal team denied the charges, stating that they were "false and completely unsubstantiated".

Basilashvili was cleared of charges after court judge questioned why Dorokashvili did not come forward earlier and stated that all claims were either debunked or had no substantial evidence of having happened.

Nikoloz did not play at any Grand Slams during his junior career.