Artem Sitak

Artem Yurievich Sitak ( Артём Юрьевич Ситак; born 8 February 1986) is a Russian-born New Zealand former professional tennis player.

Coached during the 1990s by Santini, as a 13-year-old in 1999, Sitak received a wildcard into the main draw of an ITF junior tournament in Russia as a 13-year-old in 1999.

He was defeated by Evgeni Smirnov 6–4, 6–1.

The following year he entered the qualifying draw of the same tournament, and defeated future ATP top 50 player Denis Istomin 6–0, 6–1 to win his first ITF junior match.

Sitak was taken out in the third and final round of qualifying by a future ATP top 100 player Teymuraz Gabashvili 6–4, 7–5.

At the age of 14, Sitak won the prestigious Orange Bowl.

Sitak made his first junior Grand Slam appearance at the age of 15 at the 2002 Australian Open where he was beaten in straight sets by Australian Christopher Roman.

Sitak began his senior career in 2002 at a challenger event in Togliatti, Russia, where he received a wildcard into the main draw but fell in the first round to Thomas Blake, older brother of former top 10 player James Blake.

Sitak's last junior tournament came a year later at the 2003 Australian Open where he was eliminated by Korean Suk Hyun-joon in the first round.

Sitak's first title came in 2005 in a Russian Futures tournament, where he defeated Pavel Chekhov 4–6, 6–4, 6–4 in the final.

On 11 August 2008, he reached his highest ATP singles ranking of World No. 299, whilst his highest doubles ranking of World No. 32 was reached on 10 September 2018, after the US Open.

He is the younger brother of Dmitri Sitak, who was also a professional tennis player.

Sitak began 2011 under the New Zealand flag and received a wildcard into the 2011 Heineken Open qualifying, where he was defeated by Frenchman Ludovic Walter 6–3, 6–4 in the first round.

He won the men's singles in the Ojai Tennis Tournament in 2012.

Sitak partnered Polish tennis player Mateusz Kowalczyk to win the 2014 MercedesCup doubles title, defeating Philipp Oswald and Guillermo García López 2–6, 6–1, 10–7 in the final.

Sitak's long-running doubles partnership with Nicholas Monroe came to an end after Wimbledon in 2017, and he subsequently teamed up with Dutch player Wesley Koolhof.

They reached the final in Atlanta, losing to the Bryan brothers, and lost in the first round at the US Open before winning a Challenger event in Szczecin, Poland, and losing another ATP final, this time in Metz, to Julien Benneteau and Édouard Roger-Vasselin.

Starting the new year in Brisbane, Sitak and Koolhof lost in the semi-finals to Leonardo Mayer and Horacio Zeballos.

They lost in the first round in Auckland to Michael Venus and Raven Klaasen, and then 7–6(5), 4–6, 4–6 in the second round of the Australian Open to the eventual winners, Oliver Marach and Mate Pavić.

Although they were not in the original draw for the Mixed Doubles, Sitak and Olga Savchuk teamed up as alternates after an injury to Anastasia Rodionova in her women's doubles match meant that she and Marach could not participate.

They were beaten in a first-round match tie-break by Nadiia Kichenok and Marcel Granollers.

Sitak and Koolhof then went to Newport Beach in California where, as top seeds, they lost in the first round, 2–6, 1–6, to Treat Huey and Denis Kudla.

After that came the Davis Cup where, in Tianjin, Sitak and Marcus Daniell lost their doubles tie to the lowly-ranked Chinese pair of Gong Mao-Xin and Zhang Ze.

Sitak and Koolhof then lost in the quarter-finals at Montpellier before going all the way to the final in the New York Open, being beaten by Max Mirnyi and Philipp Oswald in a match tie-break.

They followed that up with a first round loss at Delray Beach to Scott Lipsky and Divij Sharan.

Their up and down season continued in Brazil, where they reached the final in São Paulo, but were beaten in straight sets by Federico Delbonis and Máximo González.

Their next stop was Irving, Texas, where they lost in the semi-finals of the ATP Challenger to Alexander Peya and Philipp Petzschner.

Moving to Europe, and playing in the Alicante Challenger in Spain as preparation for the European clay court season, they won their second title together when they beat Guido Andreozzi and Ariel Behar 6–3, 6–2, in the final, but they lost in the first round of their next tournament in Marrakech.

In the Hungarian Open they beat the top seeds Nikola Mektić and Alexander Peya in the first round, but lost in the second to Marcin Matkowski and Sitak's former partner Nicholas Monroe.

Their next tournament was at Estoril where they went all the way to the final before losing to the British pair of Kyle Edmund and Cameron Norrie, 2–6, 4–6.

They then lost in the first round of the Bordeaux Challenger tournament after Sitak had been hit in the right ear by a smash from Radu Albot, and also in the first round in Geneva, the last tournament before the French Open.

At Roland Garros, Sitak and Koolhof beat Andre Begemann and Antonio Šančić in the first round, then the ninth seeds Ivan Dodig and Rajeev Ram, before going down to fifth seeds Juan Sebastián Cabal and Robert Farah.

All three matches went to a deciding set.

After the tournament finished it was announced that the pair would split, with Koolhof joining Sitak's fellow New Zealander, and former partner, Marcus Daniell, and Sitak linking up with Indian Divij Sharan.

Sitak and Sharan's first tournament together was at 's-Hertogenbosch, where they were beaten in the semi-finals by Michael Venus and Raven Klaasen.

They then lost in a big upset in the first round of qualifying at Halle, before finding top seeds Cabal and Farah their nemesis in the first round at Eastbourne.

They reached the quarter-finals at Wimbledon, the best-ever result in a Grand Slam tournament for either of them.

They had to come from two sets down in both their second and third round matches, against Julio Peralta and Horacio Zeballos and Marcin Matkowski and Jonathan Erlich respectively, before lining up against Mike Bryan and Jack Sock in the quarter-finals.

There were three tie-break sets to start, and just one loss of serve in the fourth set was enough to seal their defeat at the hands of the eventual champions.

In mixed doubles, Sitak teamed up with Ukrainian Lyudmyla Kichenok to beat Argentina's Leonardo Mayer and María Irigoyen, but he withdrew from the second round due to fatigue from the length of the men's doubles matches.