Ross Hutchins

Ross Dan Hutchins (born 22 February 1985 ) is a retired British professional tennis player, known best as a doubles player, who achieved a highest doubles ranking of 26.

He left the school with seven GCSEs in 2001 to pursue tennis career and to study French and Spanish courses.

He played a lot on indoor carpet courts at the All England Club after finishing homework.

He also excelled in playing cricket, rugby, basketball, swimming and football at the school.

He also enjoys playing golf and has a handicap of 12 and is an avid Fulham Football Club fan.

In 2001 he won the doubles title at British National Championships with James Smith before turning professional in 2002.

Having turned professional in 2002, he enjoyed success on the Challenger circuit and broke through to the ATP Tour in late 2007.

He reached thirteen ATP Tour doubles finals in his career winning five of them, Beijing, Montpellier, St Petersburg, Delray Beach, and Eastbourne.

Hutchins first started playing in futures and qualifying tournaments in the UK in 2003 and internationally in 2004.

This was Great Britain's first World Group match since 2003, and now faced a relegation play-off with Austria.

He bounced back immediately at the China Open, where he and Huss clinched their first ATP Tour victory.

Towards the end of the season, Hutchins also played some tournaments with Murray's former partner Eric Butorac.

In December, Andy Murray invited Ross Hutchins to his luxurious winter training base in Miami.

In 2004, he lost consciousness and collapsed due to hydration problems after practicing hard in Colombo, Sri Lanka.

In February 2005 he achieved his first professional tournament victory in the Delmont futures doubles tournament in Switzerland with Henry Adjei-Darko, with further futures doubles victories following.

He made his Grand Slam debut at the 2005 Wimbledon Men's Doubles, partnering Martin Lee, though the pair lost to Jean-François Bachelot and Arnaud Clément.

His first singles final came in a futures tournament in Montreal the subsequent November.

Hutchins success as a doubles player on the futures circuit continued, and he returned more successfully to the 2006 edition of Wimbledon with regular partner Joshua Goodall.

The pair reached the second round, having defeated Christophe Rochus and Stanislas Wawrinka in round one.

Soon after, they reached the final of their first Challenger tournament, in Nottingham.

Hutchins chose to concentrate on doubles following tournament success with Goodall.

Hutchins was hospitalised 20 times which was one of the reasons he gave up singles and turned to less tiring doubles in 2007.

2007 saw Hutchins winning more futures tournaments.

His most successful moment again came in Nottingham, this time reaching his first ATP Tour final, again with Goodall.

On the way they beat top seeds Jonathan Erlich and Andy Ram.

By the end of the year, Hutchins had broken into the world top 100 doubles ranking, having chosen to focus on the discipline.

Hutchins began to play more regularly in ATP tournaments with his new partner Stephen Huss.

They achieved a surprise result in the French Open, beating fourth seeds Mahesh Bhupathi and Mark Knowles in round one, eventually reaching the third round.

Hutchins made his Davis Cup debut for Great Britain in the World Group first round match against Argentina.

Hutchins and Jamie Murray played in and lost the doubles match, Great Britain eventually losing 4–1.

He competed for England at the 2010 Commonwealth Games in Delhi where he won silver partnering Ken Skupski in the Men's Doubles event.

In 2011 he had his best doubles Grand slam season reaching the quarter-finals of Wimbledon and then two months later equalling it at the US Open.

Hutchins was one of Britain's highest ranked doubles players, alongside Jamie Murray, Colin Fleming and Ken Skupski.

Hutchins was diagnosed with Hodgkin's lymphoma in late 2012, which was treated and went into remission by July 2013.

At the point of his diagnosis he was the British No. 3 and ranked No. 28 in the world in doubles; however, after missing the entire 2013 season, Hutchins dropped out of the ATP singles rankings.

Hutchins returned to action for the start of the 2014 season.

In March 2014, he became the tournament director of the Aegon Championships.

In September 2014, Hutchins left his role as tournament director to take up a new position as the ATP's vice-president of player relations.

Hutchins, whose father was Paul Hutchins, a former British Davis Cup player and Davis Cup Captain, has 3 siblings.

Hutchins was born in Wimbledon and attended the King's College School in Wimbledon.