Florian Mayer

Florian Mayer (born 5 October 1983) is a German former professional tennis player.

Mayer competed at the 2004 Summer Olympics.

At the 2004 Wimbledon Championships, Mayer reached the quarter-finals, which is his best Grand Slam result to date.

He received the ATP Newcomer of the Year award in 2004.

Eight years later, Mayer made his second Grand Slam quarter-final, once again at Wimbledon.

Mayer reached the third round at the 2010 Australian Open, defeating Philipp Petzschner and Viktor Troicki.

He then lost to Juan Martín del Potro in four sets.

At Wimbledon in 2010, Mayer beat 11th seed Marin Čilić in straight sets to reach the second round, where he defeated Mardy Fish in four sets.

He then lost to Lu Yen-hsun in the third round.

He also reached the quarterfinals at the Mercedes Cup in Stuttgart, losing to Gaël Monfils, and the semifinal in Hamburg, losing to eventual champion Andrey Golubev.

At the Shanghai Rolex Masters, he lost to Jo-Wilfried Tsonga in the third round, after defeating Kevin Anderson and Mikhail Youzhny in the first two rounds.

Mayer reached the final at the If Stockholm Open, after beating Jarkko Nieminen in a tight semifinal, saving a match point.

Mayer also beat world No. 5 Robin Söderling and two-time Wimbledon quarterfinalist Feliciano López en route to the final, where he lost 4–6, 3–6, to the 16-Grand Slam titles holder Roger Federer.

He went 23–18 on the season and earned $513,955.

Mayer started the new season in style.

In preparation for the Australian Open.

he reached the quarterfinals of the Brisbane International and the semifinals of the Medibank International in Sydney.

At the first Grand Slam tournament of the season in Melbourne, Mayer surprisingly defeated Doha finalist Nikolay Davydenko in four sets, only to lose against Japanese Kei Nishikori in the second round.

Two weeks later, he came through to his second semifinals of the year in Zagreb.

On his way to this stage, he defeated top seed Marin Čilić, 6–3, 6–4.

He lost the semifinal against countryman Michael Berrer.

With this result, he was the new German no. 1 in the ATP ranking.

Mayer reached his career-high singles ranking of world No. 18 in June 2011.

Also in 2011, Mayer won his first ATP title after four previous defeats in ATP finals.

The biggest win of his career came at the 2011 Shanghai Rolex Masters when he upset twenty-time Grand Slam champion Rafael Nadal in the round of 16.

Mayer was known for his unorthodox style of play.

He had a long backswing on his forehand and backhand and used many different slices and spin on his backhand side.

He was also known for his jumping backhand dropshots which caught many of his opponents on the backfoot.

At the 2011 BMW Open in Munich, Mayer reached his fourth career final.

He was again not able to capture his maiden ATP World Tour title, after losing to Nikolay Davydenko in three sets.

Two days after this loss, he managed to beat Viktor Troicki in three sets in the first round of the Mutua Madrid Open.

He had to retire in the second round against Thomaz Bellucci.

He rose to a new career-high rank of no. 28.

Mayer reached the quarterfinals of the Italian Open in Rome.

After three straight-set wins, Mayer could not keep up the momentum against Andy Murray, after having won the first set.

He went on to lose, 6–1, 1–6, 1–6.

Mayer retired from professional tennis after the 2018 US Open.

Florian made a return from injury reaching the final of the Nouméa Challenger but losing to Brendan Evans.

Mayer then qualified for the main draw of the Australian Open by beating Sergey Bubka, Blaž Kavčič and Amer Delić.

There he beat Lamine Ouahab in the first round, and then lost to Juan Martín del Potro in the second round.