Marcos Baghdatis

Marcos Baghdatis (Μάρκος Παγδατής, ماركوس بغداتيس; ; born 17 June 1985) is a Cypriot former professional tennis player and coach.

Baghdatis played his first junior match in September 1998 at the age of 14 at a Grade-5 tournament in Cyprus.

Wimbledon: 2R (2001, 2002)

He made the final at the 2002 Junior US Open but lost to Richard Gasquet.

He then repeated his final feat from 2002 at the 2003 Junior US Open but lost to Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, his major rival in his junior career.

US Open: F (2002, 2003)

He reached No. 1 in the ITF Junior Circuit world singles rankings in January 2003.

He then won the 2003 Junior Australian Open as the top seed defeating Florin Mergea in the final.

He then won the 2003 Orange Bowl for the U18 category defeating Gaël Monfils in the final.

He ended his junior career after 2003 with a win–loss record of 152–41.

Junior Grand Slam results – Singles:

Australian Open: W (2003)

French Open: QF (2003)

Baghdatis performed moderately throughout most of 2004.

He picked up his form later in that year.

At the US Open, Baghdatis played for the first time in the main draw of a Grand Slam tournament.

He defeated Olivier Mutis in a first-round match 2–6, 6–2, 6–1, 7–5.

He was one of only two players who won a set from eventual champion, Roger Federer (the other being Andre Agassi).

Baghdatis then finished the year with two Challenger tournament titles, in which he defeated many higher-ranked opponents.

Baghdatis received the 2005 Cyprus Male Athlete of the Year award.

Baghdatis's 2005 season began with a first-round loss in the Chennai Open against Nicolas Devilder.

In his next tournament, the Australian Open, as a qualifier, Baghdatis defeated then-top-20 player Ivan Ljubičić in the second round and had a straight sets victory over another top-20 player, Tommy Robredo, in the third round, before losing to Roger Federer in the fourth round.

Baghdatis suffered an elbow injury right after the Australian Open and was out of the professional tour until late April, when he entered a clay court tournament, the Estoril Open in Portugal.

He held two match points in his first-round match against a resurging Juan Carlos Ferrero, but failed to convert them into a win.

Baghdatis kept playing Challengers and qualifying for upper-tier ATP events for the rest of 2005 and found good form towards the end of the year.

As a qualifier, he reached the final of the ATP tournament at Basel, defeating former world No. 2, Tommy Haas, world No. 40, José Acasuso, and the eventual 2005 Masters Cup champion David Nalbandian.

But he lost the final to Fernando González in four sets.

Although he was not the first qualifier to reach an ATP Tour event final, he was the first player from Cyprus to do so.

He was the runner-up at the 2006 Australian Open and a semifinalist at the 2006 Wimbledon Championships, and reached a career-high ATP singles ranking of world No. 8 in August 2006.

In the latter part of his career, Baghdatis endured a series of injuries that impacted his play.

Baghdatis was born in Paramytha, Cyprus, to a Lebanese father, Christos, and a Greek Cypriot mother, Androula.

He has two brothers—Petros and Marinos—and a sister, Zena, who was adopted by his family at just six months old.

His father, a native Lebanese (Antiochian Greek Christian) who follows Greek Orthodox Christianity, emigrated to Cyprus from Lebanon and owns a clothes shop.

He began playing tennis at the age of five with his father and brothers.

He grew up idolizing tennis players Pat Rafter, Andre Agassi and Pete Sampras.

He enjoys playing and watching football and is a supporter of Apollon Limassol in Cyprus.

He trained at the Mouratoglou Tennis Academy in Paris on an Olympic Solidarity Youth Development Programme Scholarship since the age of 14 and learned to speak French.

On 28 January 2006, he received an exemption from the otherwise mandatory Cypriot national service so that he could concentrate on tennis.

On 14 July 2012, Baghdatis married the Croatian former tennis player Karolina Šprem.

They had their first child, a daughter Zahara, on 20 October 2012, a second daughter, India, on 17 December 2015, and a son, Zeus.