Ernests Gulbis

Ernests Gulbis

Country (sports)	Latvia
Residence	Jūrmala, Latvia
Height	1.90 m (6 ft 3 in)
Turned pro	2004
Plays	Right; two-handed backhand
Prize money	USD 461,485
Singles
Career record	24 - 28
Career titles	0
Highest ranking	46 (October 8, 2007)
Grand Slam singles results
Australian Open	1st round (2008)
French Open	4th round (2008)
Wimbledon	1st round (2007)
US Open	4th round (2007)
Doubles
Career record	9 - 7
Career titles	1
Highest ranking	160 (June 25, 2007)
Last updated on: April 21, 2008.

Ernests Gulbis (born August 30, 1988) is a tennis player from Latvia. He is currently ranked 80th in the world for singles, and 241st for doubles. Gulbis is coached by Karl Heinz Wetter. He used to be coached by Nikola Pilić, the former Yugoslavian tennis player and Croatian Davis Cup captain, and trained at the Niki Pilic Tennis Academy in Germany since he was 12.

Personal life

Gulbis first started playing tennis with his grandmother and considers basketball, soccer and hockey as his favourite sports. His father, Ainārs, is an investment businessman and his mother, Milēna, is a theatre actress. The second of five children, Gulbis has three sisters (Elīna, Laura and Monika) and one younger brother named Kristaps. Gulbis comes from a sporting family and his grandfather, Alvils, was one of the starting five players on ASK Rīga, the Soviet Union basketball team that won the European Championships. His other grandfather, Uldis Pūcītis, was a popular actor and film director.

Gulbis speaks three languages: Latvian, Russian, English and a little German.

Tennis career

The highlights of his career up to 2006 are: reaching the final of the Oberstaufen Challenger in July 2006, where he lost to Michal Tabara; reaching the final of the Tampere Challenger, also in July 2006, where he lost to Florian Mayer; reaching the semi-finals of ATP St. Petersburg Open as a wildcard in October, where he lost to Mario Ančić; and winning the Eckental Challenger in November, where he defeated Philipp Petzschner.

2007

Gulbis started his season as a qualifier in the Sydney Medibank International, losing in the first round to Marcos Baghdatis of Cyprus. He was subsequently defeated in the first qualifying round of the Australian Open.

Gulbis has been relatively successful on the Challenger circuit in 2007. He reached the quarterfinals in Bergamo (l. to Fabrice Santoro) and the semifinals in Heilbronn (l. to Michael Llodra). Gulbis won his second Challenger title by triumphing over the local favourite, Edouard Roger-Vasselin, at the Besançon Challenger in France, enabling him to break into the ATP Top 100 for the first time in his career. In his next tournament, the Sarajevo Challenger, Gulbis emerged victorious in both the singles and doubles events.

In the first week of October, he won the Mons Challenger in Belgium (d. Kristof Vliegen) as the top seed, breaking into the AP Top 50 for the first time in his career and surpassing Juan Martin Del Potro as the highest-ranked player born in 1988.

Gulbis serving to David Nalbandian at the 2008 Pacific Life Open.

2008

At the first round of 2008 Australian Open, Gulbis lost to Marat Safin 0–6, 4–6, 6–7. He got to the second round of the 2008 Pacific Life Open, where he lost a tight match David Nalbandian 6–4 4–6 7–6(4). At one point, he was up a break in the third set, having served out the previous game with 4 aces. Unfortunately, he choked and eventually gave the match away in the tiebreak. In first round of 2008 Miami Masters he won Dominik Hrbatý, but in second round met Nikolay Davydenko. After winning first set with 6-3, he lost following two sets in tiebreaks. Gulbis has so far reached the fourth round of the 2008 French Open where he is due to face Michael Llodra for a place in the quarter-finals.

Davis Cup

Gulbis has played in three Davis Cup ties for Latvia this year, winning all seven of the rubbers in which he participated (4 singles; 3 doubles with Deniss Pavlovs). His participation in the tie against Monaco in September helped Latvia to qualify for the Europe/Africa Zone Group I tier of Davis Cup nations for the first time in its history.

Grand Slam debut

Gulbis announced his arrival on the Grand Slam stage in the 2007 French Open by defeating the British veteran, Tim Henman in straight sets to advance to the second round. It was heralded by the British Davis Cup captain, John Lloyd, as "... a brilliant performance from Gulbis, that is just pure and utter talent." Gulbis' run was halted in the second round by Spaniard Álbert Montañés with a 1–6 2–6 6–1 6–7(3) defeat in a rain-interrupted match.

At Wimbledon, his second Grand Slam participation, Gulbis again was drawn to face Marcos Baghdatis in the first round. He succeeded in winning the first set off the tenth-seeded Cypriot before succumbing in four sets. Gulbis debuted in Grand Slam doubles by teaming up with Ivan Ljubičić, with whom he had reached the semi-finals of the 2007 Ordina Open.

Gulbis defeated Potito Starace at the 2007 U.S. Open.

At the 2007 U.S. Open, Gulbis upset the No. 30 seed, Potito Starace, in the first round and the No. 8 seed, Tommy Robredo, in the third round, winning by a convincing score of 6–1, 6–3, 6–2. In that match, Gulbis broke Robredo six times and had 39 winners to Robredo's seven. Gulbis' fine run was finally halted by former world Number 1, Carlos Moya, to whom he lost in four sets.

Playing Style

Gulbis primarily employs an offensive base-line playing style, although is fairly comfortable playing from all court positions. Gulbis' most consistent shot is his forehand, which has been likened to that of American James Blake's for its rapid pace and relatively flat execution; his forehand is taken with a medium swing and with high levels of wrist action, which attributes to the explosive nature of the shot. His arsenal of forehand shots is nearly complete, and thus can be extremely disruptive and turn a defensive position into an offensive position. His running forehand has a slice action, but consistently lands extremely deep in the court, allowing for adequate recoil time to regain court position. Gulbis also has a particularly excellent array of finesse shots, including the high lob and drop shot, both of which he can strike from any position. Gulbis' primary weakness is his back-hand, which while remaining adequately deep tends to lack variety, unless a particularly advantageous situation presents itself. Gulbis' foot speed and serve are also only moderate, although his return of serve is extremely varied and dangerous, particularly on second serves and, due to his height, kick serves.

Despite having prodigious talent for his age, Gulbis can be prone to nervousness when down in a set or match, which can cause tight matches to be more mentally straining on him. Similarly to Marat Safin, Gulbis' playing style is extremely tactical and aggressive, and relies more on making winners than drawing errors, which can sometimes lead to a very high unforced error count. Despite his extremely aggressive nature, Gulbis' best surface is clay, and his worst surface is grass.

Grand Slam Singles performance

Tournament	2007	2008
Australian Open	A	1R
French Open	2R	QF
Wimbledon	1R
US Open	4R

Career Titles

Singles Titles

Legend (Singles)

Grand Slam (0)

Tennis Masters Cup (0)

ATP Masters Series (0)

ATP Tour (0)

Challengers (4)

No.	Date	Tournament	Surface	Opponent in the final	Score
1.	November 6, 2006	Eckental	Carpet	Philipp Petzschner	6–3, 6–0
2.	February 19, 2007	Besancon	Hard (i)	Edouard Roger-Vasselin	6–4, 3–6, 6–4
3.	March 12, 2007	Sarajevo	Hard (i)	Jan Mertl	4–6, 6–4, 7–6
4.	October 7, 2007	Mons	Hard (i)	Kristof Vliegen	7–5, 6–3

Doubles Titles

Legend (Doubles)

Grand Slam (0)

Tennis Masters Cup (0)

ATP Masters Series (0)

ATP Tour (1)

Challengers (0)

No.	Date	Tournament	Surface	Partnering	Opponents in the final	Score
1.	April 14, 2008	Houston, USA	Clay	Rainer Schüttler	Pablo Cuevas Marcel Granollers Pujol	7-5, 7-6(3)

External links

• Ernests Gulbis at the Association of Tennis Professionals
• 'The Importance of Being Ernests' - An Ernests Gulbis website
• Gulbis Recent Match Results
• Gulbis World Ranking History
• Ernests Gulbis statistics at tennisinsight.com
• Ernests Gulbis Davis Cup statistics