Thomaz Bellucci

Thomaz Cocchiarali Bellucci (born 30 December 1987, in Tietê) is a Brazilian former professional tennis player.

He upset the former world No. 1, 2003 French Open champion, and 2007 Brasil Open titlist Juan Carlos Ferrero in the quarterfinals, but eventually lost in 3 sets to second-seeded Tommy Robredo.

It was his first ATP Tour final, after a string of Challengers.

In August, he would win his first title at the Swiss Open in Gstaad after reaching the main draw through qualification and going on to beat local hope and former world No. 9 Stanislas Wawrinka, former world No. 4 Nicolas Kiefer, two-time Swiss Open runner-up Igor Andreev, and first-time finalist Andreas Beck in straight sets.

Ranked No. 119 in the world at the time of his victory in Switzerland, Bellucci jumped 53 spots in the ATP World Tour rankings to No. 66 as a result.

In October, Bellucci reached his first hard-court ATP World Tour semifinal.

He reached the last 4 at the Stockholm Open, losing to Olivier Rochus in three sets.

Bellucci reached as high as No. 15 in the junior combined world rankings, two weeks after his 17th birthday, in January 2005.

Bellucci began 2007 ranked No. 582, but began a rapid ascent in June to finish the year at No. 202.

Bellucci used a string of ATP Challenger Tour victories early in 2008 to break into the top 100 rankings of the ATP World Tour as a 20-year-old.

The 20-year-old Bellucci continued his rapid rise early in 2008.

The first week of the year, ranked No. 202, he made it to the quarterfinals of a Challenger in São Paulo.

Bellucci had little success in his next few tournaments, but in February he got back on track, beating No. 145 Pablo Andújar while qualifying into an ATP stop in Buenos Aires and then recording his first-ever ATP match win, over No. 83 Werner Eschauer, before bowing out in the next round to No. 25 Juan Ignacio Chela.

The following week, he beat No. 130 Rubén Ramírez Hidalgo and No. 140 Eduardo Schwank en route to his first-ever Challenger title, in Santiago, Chile, to improve his ranking to No. 145.

The next week, he beat No. 162 Dick Norman before losing in a Challenger second round match.

In April, Bellucci began an amazing string of Challenger match wins in singles play.

First he won a minor Challenger in Florianópolis, Brazil, and made the final in doubles.

Two weeks later, he ran his singles streak to 10 matches while winning a major Challenger in Tunis, beating No. 155 Andreas Beck, No. 363 Martin Verkerk, No. 136 Paul Capdeville, No. 113 Nicolás Massú, and No. 175 Dušan Vemić, and also won the doubles title.

Those wins got him into the top 100 for the first time at No. 100.

The following week, at a minor Challenger in Rabat, Morocco, he ran his streak to 15 matches while beating No. 136 Capdeville again, No. 96 Guillermo García López, and No. 119 Martín Vassallo Argüello to win the title and get his ranking to No. 81.

His streak ended at 17 matches the next week, after beating No. 128 Rik de Voest to reach the quarterfinals of a challenger in Bordeaux, France, when he finally lost to No. 111 Igor Kunitsyn, improving Bellucci's ranking to No. 75.

In late May, he qualified into his first French Open, lost to 3-time defending champion and ATP No. 2 Rafael Nadal in the first round.

At Wimbledon, he achieved his first win in a Grand Slam event, defeating Igor Kunitsyn in four sets.

He lost in the first round of the 2008 Olympics to Dominik Hrbatý.

Bellucci began the year reaching the Brasil Open final for the first time.

He has won 4 ATP Tour titles (the 2009 and 2012 Swiss Open, the 2010 Movistar Open and the 2015 Geneva Open), reached the quarterfinals at the 2016 Olympics and reached the semi-finals of the 2011 Madrid Masters.

Thomaz's playing style relies on using the heavy topspin of his forehand to control the points.

He lacks outright power to produce a lot of aces, but he has excellent spin on his serve, allowing him to force his opponents off the court which leads to him taking the offensive at the beginning of the point.

His two-handed backhand is much more compact than his forehand, and is flatter, which allows him to take balls earlier on his backhand wing and drive the ball for winners.

He is one of the players who generally plays the South American and European Summer clay court swings.

He then followed his good form to win his second challenger title of the year, at the 2009 Copa Petrobras São Paulo in Brazil.

He beat Nicolás Lapentti of Ecuador to win the sixth challenger of his career, and the second on his native soil.

This result bumped Bellucci up to No. 37 in the world, the first time that Thomaz was ranked inside the Top 40 in the world in singles.

Thomaz entered the first tournament of the season, the Brisbane International ATP tournament worth 250 points.

He made the quarter-finals after being narrowly edged out by Czech Tomáš Berdych, where he lost two tiebreaks.

At the Heineken Open, at Auckland, he lost to Philipp Kohlschreiber in the second round.

He achieved a career-high singles ranking of World No. 21 in July 2010.

He then lost early to Andy Roddick at the 2010 Australian Open.

Going to the Latin America clay tournaments, on 2010 Movistar Open, at Chile, Bellucci defeated defending champion Fernando González in the semifinals and Juan Mónaco in the final match to capture his second tour title.

In the 2010 Brasil Open he lost to compatriot Ricardo Mello in the quarterfinals.