Somdev Devvarman

At the year's first Grand Slam, the Australian Open, Somdev was seeded 28th in singles qualifying.

Only three other players have matched that record since 1950.

Somdev Kishore Devvarman (born 13 February 1985) is an Indian former professional tennis player.

He hit the headlines for being the only collegiate player to have made three consecutive finals at the NCAA, winning back-to-back finals in his junior and senior years at the University of Virginia.

Devvarman started competing in Futures tournaments in 2002 at the age of 17.

His biggest achievement during this time was a victory in the Kolkata F2 championship in 2004, after which he rose to 666 in the world rankings.

He moved to the USA later that year and competed less regularly while at the University of Virginia.

Somdev, while at college, won the 2007 NCAA Singles Championship by defeating Georgia Bulldog's senior, the top seed John Isner in the final.

A year later, he defeated Tennessee's J.P. Smith to win his second consecutive NCAA Singles National Championship.

Devvarman made the final of the Kennedy Funding Invitational in New York in July 2007.

In a clay-court non-tour event which included several players ranked in the top 150, Devvarman defeated Ricardo Mello, Robert Kendrick, and Justin Gimelstob, before losing a three-set match to No. 69 Michael Russell in the final.

His 44–1 win–loss record in 2008 at the NCAA Men's Tennis Championship is unprecedented.

Devvarman becomes the 13th player in the 124-year history of the tournament to win consecutive titles, and just the fourth to do so in the past 50 years with an unprecedented 44–1 record in 2008.

Somdev finished university with a degree in sociology and turned pro in the summer of 2008.

He won his first career title that year at a Futures tournament in Rochester, New York.

He returned and won the tournament in 2008, beating Sam Querrey and Dudi Sela along the way.

On 27 July 2008, Devvarman won the Lexington Challenger, first coming through qualifying, and then beating players including Bobby Reynolds, Xavier Malisse, and Robert Kendrick to take the title.

He received automatic entry into the Vancouver Open and reached the quarterfinals, before his first professional defeat, by Go Soeda.

In August 2008, Devvarman made the quarterfinals of the Legg Mason Tennis Classic, first beating Sam Warburg, Jamie Baker, and Soeda to qualify, and then beating Taylor Dent and Robert Kendrick in the main draw, before losing to Russian Igor Kunitsyn.

At the BCR Bucharest Open, Devvarman lost to world No. 18 Nicolás Almagro after winning the first set in the first round, having beaten No. 93 Italian Filippo Volandri in the final round of qualifying.

Devvarman ended 2008 ranked as world No. 204.

He had started the year at No. 1033.

His best achievement on the ATP World Tour was reaching the final of the Chennai Open in 2009, as a wild card entry.

The University of Virginia retired Devvarman's jersey in 2009.

Devvarman reached his first ATP Tour final at the 2009 Chennai Open, the first tournament of the new season, beating two-time Chennai Open champion and world No. 42 Carlos Moyá of Spain and No. 25 Ivo Karlović of Croatia.

Rainer Schüttler of Germany pulled out due to injury in the semifinals, meaning that Devvarman progressed to the final.

In the final, he lost to Marin Čilić of Croatia.

In 2010, Somdev won the gold medal in the men's singles event of XIXth Commonwealth Games at the R.K. Khanna Tennis Stadium in New Delhi, and he followed it up with both men's singles and doubles gold in the 2010 Asian Games in Guangzhou, China.

He was coached by Scott McCain.

At the end of 2010, he was felicitated by the Tamil Nadu Tennis Association in Chennai.

After graduating from the University of Virginia, Devvarman signed with Mamba International, a sports management company based in Charlottesville, and started his professional career at the Futures tournament in Rochester, New York, where he won the singles title.

He and his former university partner, Treat Huey, won the doubles title.

The next week at another Futures match in Pittsburgh, Devvarman and Huey won the doubles title, and Devvarman the singles.

In 2011, Devvarman received the Arjuna Award from the Indian government for his tennis successes.

In March 2017, the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports, Government of India, appointed him as the national observer for tennis.

In 2018, he was awarded with the civilian award Padma Shri.

Somdev was born into a Tripuri Hindu family in Guwahati, Assam to Ranjana and Pravanjan Dev Varman, a retired income tax commissioner.

He belongs to the Indian state of Tripura.

His family moved to Calcutta when he was 3 to 4 months old and stayed there until he was 8.

His father's work took the family to Madras (Chennai) where Somdev grew up, beginning tennis at age 9, and studied at Madras Christian College Higher Secondary School.