Ernests Gulbis

Ernests Gulbis (, born 30 August 1988, nicknamed "Lord", "The Gull" or "Ernie") is a Latvian inactive professional tennis player.

He refused to play much junior tennis as he only played in three tournaments winning one in May 2004.

He mainly played in men's ITF futures events to start his career and officially turned pro in June 2004 at the age of 15.

Gulbis' first event at any level was a challenger tournament in Germany in June 2004 after receiving a wildcard into the main draw.

He lost in the first round to Teymuraz Gabashvili in straight sets.

For most of 2004–2006, he solely played ITF futures events while also occasionally playing in challenger events.

At first, he struggled to win matches.

But his results started to improve as time went on and he won his first futures title in September 2005.

After this win, he made four more futures finals in 2006 winning two.

In July 2006, Gulbis made his first challenger final where he lost to Michal Tabara in straight sets.

In 2008, Gulbis won his first ATP Tour doubles title at the U.S. Men's Clay Court Championships, teaming with Rainer Schüttler, and in 2010, he won his first ATP Tour singles title in the Delray Beach, defeating Ivo Karlović in the final.

In total, Gulbis has six ATP titles to his name.

He had previously reached the quarterfinals of the 2008 French Open.

In 2009, Gulbis was arrested in Sweden for soliciting prostitutes.

He called it a "misunderstanding".

After paying a fine, he was released in time to play in the Stockholm Open.

When Gulbis stunned world no. 1 Roger Federer at the 2010 Italian Open after throwing away six match points, he told reporters that "I shit my pants a little bit there...excuse my language" and has bragged about his racquet-throwing "skills" in an on-court interview.

On a telecast during the 2010 Western and Southern Financial Group Masters from Cincinnati, broadcasters Brad Gilbert, Patrick McEnroe and Chris Fowler compared Gulbis to former world No. 1 Marat Safin in terms of both playing style and attitude on and off court.

Like Safin, Gulbis often comments about his own lack of discipline and/or interest in practising, but is forthcoming about his aspirations for a high ranking.

Beginning after Wimbledon 2011, Gulbis was coached by Austrian Günter Bresnik, until his departure the day before the 2016 French Open.

Previously, he was coached by Guillermo Cañas, and before that by Hernán Gumy (who before that was Marat Safin's coach), but their partnership ended due to Gumy's schedule; during that time, Darren Cahill served as Gulbis' consultant for several tournaments.

Before Gumy, Gulbis was coached by Karl Heinz Wetter, and subsequently by Nikola Pilić, the former professional Croatian tennis player and Croatian and German Davis Cup captain.

Since September 2022, Gulbis has been the president of the Latvian Tennis Union, gradually ending his career as a professional tennis player.

Gulbis grew up in an upper-class household.

His book-collecting parents named him after Ernest Hemingway.

His father Ainārs is an investment businessman, and his mother Milēna Gulbe-Kavace is a theater actress.

His maternal grandfather Uldis Pūcītis was a popular actor and film director.

The second of five children, Gulbis has three sisters and one brother.

His younger half-sister Laura Gulbe is also a tennis player.

Gulbis comes from a sporting family in general, and his paternal grandfather, Alvils Gulbis, was one of the starting five players on ASK Rīga, the Soviet Union basketball team that won the European Championships.

He first started playing tennis with his grandmother.

Speaking about the need for more explosive rivalries in tennis (e. g., Connors-McEnroe), in 2013 he said that Federer, Nadal, Djokovic and Andy Murray were "boring" in interviews.

The next year, at the French Open, when Gulbis was asked if he would encourage his sisters to pursue professional tennis, he said he believed that women should "focus on family and kids".

Gulbis speaks Latvian, English, Russian, some French, and German.

Gulbis began playing tennis at the age of 5 with his grandmother.

At the age of 12, he attended the Nikola Pilić tennis academy in Munich and trained there until age 18.

One of the players he trained with at the Niki Pilić academy was future world No. 1 Novak Djokovic who sometimes practiced with Gulbis when they were at the academy.

His best performance at a Grand Slam was reaching the semifinals of the 2014 French Open.

Gulbis' career-high singles ranking is world No. 10, making him the only male Latvian tennis player ever to be ranked inside the top 10, a feat he achieved in June 2014.

Gulbis married Tamara Kopaleyshvili in November 2017, and they are raising a child in Riga, Latvia.