Illya Marchenko

Illya Vasylovych Marchenko (Ілля Васильович Марченко) (born 8 September 1987) is a Ukrainian professional tennis player.

Has one older brother, Igor Marchenko, a manager and former ice skater who took part in the 1998 Winter Olympics.

Growing up, he admired Lleyton Hewitt and Roger Federer.

He has played doubles on the Futures level with fellow Ukrainian Artem Smirnov.

Marchenko turned professional in 2005 and played mostly on the ITF Futures circuit and Challengers level from 2005 to 2008.

In 2006, he reached his first Futures final (Nigeria F5) and won his first futures title a week later (Nigeria F6).

He then attempted to qualify for his first ATP World Tour event in Marseille, but lost in the first round of qualification to Jérémy Chardy.

In 2007, Marchenko reached his third Futures final (Belarus F2) before losing to Russian Mikhail Elgin.

Again, attempting to qualify for the main draw of an ATP World Tour event, Marchenko lost in the second round of the Kremlin Cup qualifiers in Moscow, and the final round of the St. Petersburg Open qualifier a week later.

In 2008, Marchenko reached his fourth Futures final (Russia F2) before bowing out to Pavel Chekhov in the final.

In May, Marchenko reached the semi-final of the Türk Telecom İzmir Cup Challenger in Turkey before losing to eventual champion Gilles Müller.

This was his best Challenger performance to date.

In August 2008, however, Marchenko topped out his previous Challenger performances by reaching the final of the Bukhara Challenger in Uzbekistan before losing to hometown favorite Denis Istomin in 3 sets.

Marchenko then closed out his year with solid performances in two Ukrainian Challengers, reaching the Quarterfinals and Semifinals in each, respectively.

Marchenko played his first Davis Cup tie in 2008, winning his only rubber.

In March, Marchenko played his first live rubber in Davis Cup after being selected as second singles man for the Ukrainian team in the tie versus Great Britain.

Marchenko defeated Josh Goodall, Britain's first singles man in the absence of Andy Murray in straight sets.

Ukraine went on to win the tie after claiming victory in the doubles rubber (contested by Sergiy Stakhovsky and Sergei Bubka for Ukraine and Ross Hutchins and Colin Fleming for Great Britain).

Marchenko played the fifth dead rubber against Chris Eaton and lost.

Marchenko played his first ATP World Tour match in Marseille after winning 3 rounds of qualification.

However, he lost to Mischa Zverev in 3 sets, despite winning the first set.

In May, Marchenko reached the semifinal of the Fergana Challenger in Uzbekistan, before reaching the final of the Penza Cup Challenger in Russia (losing to Mikhail Kukushkin in the final).

In August, Marchenko won the Istanbul Challenger in Turkey, beating 4 players ranked inside the Top 200 best of the world, including Karol Beck (ranked #100 at the time).

Marchenko beat Florian Mayer to win the title, the first Challenger title of his entire career (singles or doubles).

On the ATP Tour, Marchenko reached the semifinals of Moscow in 2009, the 2010 St. Petersburg Open and Doha in 2016.

He is noted for his backhand, which he cites as his best shot.

His favorite surface is hard courts.

Illya began playing tennis at age seven.

His father Vassili and mother Anna are both engineers.

He was coached by Orest Tereschuk from July 2009 till 2014 and by Tibor Toth from 2014.

Marchenko also has a YouTube channel with close to 3,000 subscribers and 150,000 views where he posts tennis-related content.

Marchenko attempted to qualify for the first time into the main draw of a Grand Slam at the 2009 US Open, but lost to Marco Chiudinelli in the final round of qualification.

In October, Marchenko won 6 matches in a row before losing to countryman Sergiy Stakhovsky in the semi-final of the Mons Challenger in Belgium.

He followed his good form at the Kremlin Cup event in Moscow, Russia.

After winning three rounds of qualification matches, Marchenko reached his second ever ATP World Tour main draw.

He then beat Denis Istomin in his first match, Andrey Golubev in his second match, and Evgeny Korolev in his quarterfinal match to reach his first ATP World Tour semifinal.

This run in Moscow was Marchenko's best ATP result thus far.

However, he lost to Serbia's Janko Tipsarević.

He then played at the 2009 St. Petersburg Open, where he won his first round match against 56th ranked Fabio Fognini.

He has a career high in singles of World No. 49 achieved on 26 September 2016 and of No. 268 in doubles achieved on 25 August 2014.