Marcus Daniell

Marcus Daniell (born 9 November 1989) is a New Zealand professional tennis player.

While mainly playing in futures events, Daniell received a doubles wild card entry to play in the 2010 Heineken Open, an ATP 250 event in his home country of New Zealand.

With new doubles partner, Horia Tecău, they had an improbable run to the finals of the event.

The pair first dispatched fellow New Zealanders the Statham brothers, 6–3, 6–2.

Daniell and Tecău then won a three set showdown against the third seeded Spaniards Tommy Robredo and Marcel Granollers, 3–6.

7–6(5), 10–8. In the semifinal match Daniell and Tecău faced Johan Brunström and Jean-Julien Rojer who had defeated grand slam winners Lukáš Dlouhý and Leander Paes.

Daniell and Tecău prevailed 3–6, 7–6(4), 10–8 to set up a final with Brazilians Marcelo Melo and Bruno Soares.

In the championship match, Daniell and Tecău won against the Brazilians 7–5, 6–4, each player winning their first ATP World Tour title.

Daniell was to represent New Zealand in both the singles and the doubles, paired with Rubin Statham, at the 2010 Commonwealth Games.

However, he had to withdraw due to an ongoing back injury, leaving Statham to compete in the singles alone.

Daniell first teamed up with Brazilian Marcelo Demoliner in the ATP Challenger grass series leading up to Wimbledon.

They followed their runner-up finish to Ken and Neal Skupski at Surbiton by beating the same opponents a week later in the final at Ilkley.

Daniell won the Stuttgart Open with Artem Sitak before again teaming up with Demoliner.

They reached their first ATP World Tour final when runners-up in the Swedish Open.

At Wimbledon Daniell and Koolhof lost to qualifiers Sriram Balaji and Vishnu Vardhan in the first round, while in the mixed doubles he and Nadiia Kichenok won their first match, but lost in the second round to 10th seeds Juan Sebastian Cabal and Abigail Spears.

They then returned to the European clay courts, losing in the quarter-finals of the Swedish Open, the semi-finals of the German Open in Hamburg (to Oliver Marach and Mate Pavic), and the first round in Kitzbühel, the latter to Jürgen Melzer and Philipp Petzschner, who had also beaten them in Sweden.

Daniell competed with Michael Venus at the 2016 Summer Olympics, losing a close first round match to Canadians Daniel Nestor and Vasek Pospisil 6–4, 3–6, 6–7 (6).

Daniell and Demoliner reached three ATP World Tour finals, at São Paulo, Lyon and Chengdu, although they were unable to win any of them, and improved their ranking as a team to World number 15.

He achieved his best win when, having had to qualify for the Swiss Indoor tournament in Basel because Demoliner was playing in Vienna, he and new partner Dominic Inglot beat the top seeds, the world's second-ranked pair of Henri Kontinen and John Peers, in the first round.

They eventually lost in the semi-final to Fabrice Martin and Édouard Roger-Vasselin.

After losing in first-round match tie-breaks in both Brisbane and Auckland, Daniell and Inglot won through to the quarter-finals in the Australian Open.

In a high quality three-set match, where they saved match points in both the second and third sets, they lost to the eventual tournament winners, Oliver Marach and Mate Pavić, 4–6, 7–6 (10), 6–7 (5).

Daniell also played in the Mixed Doubles, teaming up with Chinese player Xu Yifan.

They drew third seeds and eventual semi-finalists Ekaterina Makarova and Bruno Soares as their first-round opponents and, although winning the second set, were outclassed in the match tie-break, the final score being 6–3, 5–7, 10–2.

Daniell and Artem Sitak teamed up for the doubles in the Davis Cup tie against China, but were beaten by Gong Mao-Xin and Zhang Ze.

He then returned to the ATP tour with Inglot, losing in the first round in Montpellier before finishing runners-up to Michael Venus and Raven Klaasen in Marseille.

Although Daniell had previously faced a New Zealander (Rubin Statham) in a Challenger doubles final, this was the first time that New Zealanders had been on opposite sides of the net in an ATP World Tour doubles final.

Daniell and Inglot then moved to Dubai, where they lost in a match tie-break in the first round to second seeds Jean-Julien Rojer and Horia Tecău.

Moving on to Indian Wells, Daniell teamed as a one-off with Diego Schwartzman.

After a tough opening match, and a much easier second round, they lost in the quarter-finals to Bob and Mike Bryan, 7–5, 6–1.

The following week in Miami he and Inglot faced the Bryan brothers in the first round, winning the first set but losing the second and being well-beaten in the match tie-break.

They used the Marrakech tournament to start their clay court season, winning in the first round but losing in the second to Divij Sharan and Jan-Lennard Struff.

In that match Daniell aggravated an injury to his right wrist which he had picked up during the Davis Cup tie against China, and announced later that he would miss the rest of the clay court season to concentrate on his rehabilitation.

After the French Open it was revealed that Inglot had decided to seek another partner for the grass court season, due to his uncertainty over whether or not Daniell would be fit, and that Daniell would be teaming up with fellow New Zealander Artem Sitak's former partner in Wesley Koolhof.

Daniell returned to tournament play at Queen's Club in London.

He and Koolhof lost in qualifying, but became lucky losers and beat the wildcard combination of Novak Djokovic and Stan Wawrinka in the first round, before going down to Jamie Murray and Bruno Soares in a match tie-break.

In their last tournament before Wimbledon, Daniell and Koolhof lost in the first round at Eastbourne to Ryan Harrison and Nicholas Monroe, again in a match tie-break.

He reached his career-high ATP doubles ranking of world No. 34 on 29 January 2018 after reaching the quarterfinals of the Australian Open.

He won a bronze medal in the men's doubles at the 2020 Summer Olympics, alongside Michael Venus.

Daniell is a philanthropist and an advocate for effective altruism through his work as the founder of High Impact Athletes and as a member of Giving What We Can.