Carsten Ball

Carsten Ball
Carsten Ball 2010 at the US Open
Nation:	Australia
Birthday:	June 20, 1987
Size:	198 cm
Weight:	91 kg
1st professional season:	2005
Resignation:	2016
Playing hand:	Left, two-handed backhand
Trainer:	Syd ball
Prize money:	$ 671,061
singles
Career record:	11:15
Highest ranking:	108 (July 26, 2010)
Grand Slam record
Double
Career record:	30:27
Career title:	1
Highest ranking:	54 (October 26, 2009)
Grand Slam record
Mixed
Grand Slam record
Sources: official player profiles at the ATP / WTA and ITF (see web links )

Carsten Thomas Ball (born June 20, 1987 in Newport Beach , United States ) is a retired Australian tennis player .

life and career

Until 2005: Background and junior career

Carsten Ball started playing tennis at the age of four. He is trained by his father, Syd Ball , who was successful as a tennis professional in the 1970s and won a total of seven ATP doubles titles, and also made it to the double finals at the Australian Open in 1974 . Carsten was born and raised in the USA, but he has dual citizenship and competes in tennis like his father for Australia.

Carsten Ball has been active on the junior tour since 2002 and was particularly successful there in 2004 and 2005. So he reached the quarter-finals at the Australian Open in January 2005 ; in doubles he was even able to advance to the finals together with Thiemo de Bakker at the US Open 2005 . His best placement in the junior world rankings was 9th in May 2005.

2002–2007: First experiences at future tournaments

At the same time, Carsten Ball had also tried to qualify for future and satellite tournaments in the adult area since 2002. He did this for the first time in 2005, and at the end of the year he had his first match wins. In doubles he was able to win two future tournaments with Andrew Coelho .

For the qualification for the Australian Open in January 2006 Ball got a wild card , but he was eliminated in the first qualifying round. In doubles he and Andrew Coelho got a wildcard for the main field, where they at least reached the second round. In the further course of the year he won a total of four Future titles in doubles, all with his new partner Adam Feeney . They also reached the final of a Challenger tournament in Caloundra . In the individual, he only reached the quarter-finals of a future tournament once this year.

It took until July 2007 for Carsten Ball to win a future tournament in the USA for the first time. In the following months he reached four more future finals, one of which he was able to win, so that in November 2007 he was listed in the top 500 of the tennis world rankings for the first time . In doubles he was meanwhile fairly consistently in the top 200, among other things he had again reached a Challenger final in Brisbane with Adam Feeney.

2008: Successes at Challenger tournaments in singles and especially in doubles

After Ball and Feeney were eliminated in the second round of the Australian Open last year , they reached the second round in 2008 . A month later, Carsten Ball won his first Challenger title in doubles in Wolfsburg together with Izak van der Merwe . Just a month later, the next title followed in Mexico City with Robert Smeets . In May 2008 Ball reached a Challenger final in singles for the first time in Tunica Resorts , but he was defeated by Iván Miranda . After several Challenger semi-finals and a future title in June 2008, Carsten Ball entered the top 200 in an individual for the first time. For the US Open he got a wildcard, but he was eliminated in the first round against Viktor Troicki . In doubles, he won four more Challenger tournaments on American soil this year, three of them with Travis Rettenmaier . Another highlight of the year was Carsten Ball's Davis Cup debut against Chile in September 2008. He was able to win in doubles as well as in singles, but still could not prevent the 2: 3 defeat.

2009: First ATP singles final and Grand Slam quarter finals in doubles

At the Australian Open , Carsten Ball and Chris Guccione , with whom he had already won the Davis Cup together, received a wild card. As in the previous year, it was the end of the last sixteen. He also got a wildcard in singles, but was eliminated in the first round against Michael Berrer . In May 2009, Ball was in Sarasota for the second time in a Challenger final, but lost to James Ward . Only a month later he lost again in a Challenger final in Yuba City , this time the tournament winner was Ryler DeHeart . In doubles, Ball and Travis Rettenmaier won two more tournaments in May and July 2009. At the end of July 2009, Carsten Ball qualified for the Los Angeles ATP tournament , and then marched after victories over the top 100 player Marc Gicquel , Dmitri Tursunow , John Isner and Leonardo Mayer through to the final. There he was defeated by Sam Querrey , but still made a jump to 145th place in the world rankings. A month later, he again survived qualification at the US Open and won his first Grand Slam match in the first round against Juan Pablo Brzezicki . In the second round, however, he had no chance against Novak Đoković, who was placed in 4th position . Things went better in doubles, where he and Chris Guccione were only stopped in the quarterfinals by brothers Bob and Mike Bryan . In the double world rankings, Carsten Ball rose to 54th place, his career record.

2010–2011: First ATP double title and Challenger single title

The year 2010 began for Carsten Ball with a first round defeat against Fernando Verdasco at the Australian Open , followed by a Challenger final in Dallas , where he was defeated by Ryan Sweeting . At the French Open in May 2010, Ball won an almost four-hour match in five sets against Philipp Petzschner before he was eliminated in the second round, as at the US Open 2008, against Viktor Troicki. At Wimbledon he was able to qualify for the first time for the main draw, but lost there to Ričardas Berankis . In doubles, Carsten Ball and Chris Guccione made it to the round of 16, where they failed again due to the Bryans. At the following Newport lawn tournament , the two were able to win their first ATP title against Santiago González and Ball's former doubles partner Travis Rettenmaier. A week later, they also defended their Challenger title in Aptos . In singles Ball reached the semi-finals in Aptos and a week later in Lexington in the fifth attempt with a victory over Jesse Levine won his only Challenger title. As a result, he achieved his best world ranking with rank 108. Shortly thereafter, however, he fell back in the world rankings because he lost the points of the finals in Los Angeles. At the US Open , however, he was able to compete thanks to a wildcard and, as in the previous year, reached the second round after defeating Milos Raonic . There, however, was against Albert Montañés, who was placed in 21st position . In the following Davis Cup game against Belgium Carsten Ball lost both singles, so that Australia missed promotion to the world group with 2: 3. At the US Challenger hard court tournaments at the end of the year Ball was able to reach a semi-finals in Tiburon and ended the year in 153rd place in the world rankings.

At the beginning of 2011, Carsten Ball received a wildcard for the Australian Open , as in the previous two years , but again he was eliminated in the first round in five sets against Pere Riba . In doubles and mixed he was able to reach the third round. The following months were not very successful for Carsten Ball, especially in the individual: He was eliminated in the first round of eleven tournaments or failed to qualify, only at the Challenger tournament in Aptos he was able to reach the semifinals as in the previous year. In doubles he was able to win the title in Aptos for the third time in a row with Chris Guccione , and together with Santiago González he again reached the round of 16 at Wimbledon . In the second half of the season, double titles followed on the Challenger Tour in Istanbul (with Andre Begemann ), Sacramento and Tiburon (each with Chris Guccione).

2012–2016: Further title wins on the Challenger Tour

In his last five years as a professional, Ball managed to win five tournaments in doubles. In 2012 he won the doubles competition with Bobby Reynolds in Savannah , the following year he was successful with Chris Guccione in Mexico City . Ball won three titles in the 2015 season : he won the Burnie title with Matt Reid in February , he and Brydan Klein were victorious in Lexington in August, and in October he prevailed with Dustin Brown in Las Vegas . In 2016, Ball played a professional tournament for the last time after not being placed in the world rankings in singles and only outside the top 100 for doubles.

successes

Legend (number of victories)

Grand Slam

ATP World Tour Finals

ATP World Tour Masters 1000

ATP World Tour 500

ATP World Tour 250 (1)

ATP Challenger Tour (21)

singles

Tournament victories

No.	date	competition	Topping	Final opponent	Result
1.	July 25, 2010	Lexington	Hard court	Jesse Levine	6: 4, 7: 6 2

Final participation

No.	date	competition	Topping	Final opponent	Result
1.	August 2, 2009	los Angeles	Hard court	Sam Querrey	4: 6, 6: 3, 1: 6

Double

Tournament victories

ATP World Tour

No.	date	competition	Topping	partner	Final opponent	Result
1.	July 11, 2010	Newport	race	Chris Guccione	Santiago González Travis Rettenmaier	6: 3, 6: 4

ATP Challenger Tour

No.	date	competition	Topping	partner	Final opponent	Result
1.	March 2, 2008	Wolfsburg	Carpet (i)	Izak van der Merwe	Richard Bloomfield Ken Skupski	7: 6 5 , 6: 3
2.	April 20, 2008	Mexico city	Hard court	Robert Smeets	Neil Bamford Joshua Goodall	6: 7 5 , 6: 4, [10: 3]
3.	May 17, 2008	Bradenton	sand	Lester Cook	Ryler DeHeart Todd Widom	4: 6, 6: 3, [10: 6]
4th	May 31, 2008	Carson	Hard court	Travis Rettenmaier	Ryler DeHeart Daniel King-Turner	6: 4, 6: 2
5.	August 10, 2008	Binghamton	Hard court	Travis Rettenmaier	Brian Battistone Then Battistone	6: 3, 6: 4
6th	November 9, 2008	Nashville	Hard court (i)	Travis Rettenmaier	Harsh Mankad Ashutosh Singh	6: 4, 7: 5
7th	May 10, 2009	Savannah (1)	sand	Travis Rettenmaier	Harsh Mankad Kaes Van't Hof	7: 6 4 , 6: 4
8th.	June 7, 2009	Yuba City	Hard court	Travis Rettenmaier	Adam Feeney Nathan Healey	6: 3, 6: 4
9.	July 5, 2009	Winnetka	Hard court	Travis Rettenmaier	Brett Joelson Ryan Sweeting	6: 1, 6: 2
10.	July 19, 2009	Aptos (1)	Hard court	Chris Guccione	Sanchai Ratiwatana Sonchat Ratiwatana	6: 3, 6: 2
11.	July 18, 2010	Aptos (2)	Hard court	Chris Guccione	Adam Feeney Greg Jones	6: 3, 6: 2
12.	July 17, 2011	Aptos (3)	Hard court	Chris Guccione	John Paul Fruttero Raven Klaasen	7: 6 5 , 6: 4
13.	17th September 2011	Istanbul	Hard court	Andre Begemann	Grégoire Burquier Yannick Mertens	6: 2, 6: 4
14th	October 9, 2011	Sacramento	Hard court	Chris Guccione	Nicholas Monroe Jack Sock	7: 6 3 , 1: 6, [10: 5]
15th	October 16, 2011	Tiburon	Hard court	Chris Guccione	Steve Johnson Sam Querrey	6: 1, 5: 7, [10: 6]
16.	April 29, 2012	Savannah (2)	sand	Bobby Reynolds	Travis Parrott Simon Stadler	7: 6 7 , 6: 4
17th	April 20, 2013	Mexico city	Hard court	Chris Guccione	Jordan Kerr John-Patrick Smith	6: 3, 3: 6, [11: 9]
18th	February 8, 2015	Burnie	Hard court	Matt Reid	Radu Albot Matthew Ebden	7: 5, 6: 4
19th	August 1, 2015	Lexington	Hard court	Brydan Klein	Dean O'Brien Ruan Roelofse	6: 4, 7: 6 4
20th	October 25, 2015	Las Vegas	Hard court	Dustin Brown	Dean O'Brien Ruan Roelofse	3: 6, 6: 3, [10: 6]

Web links

Commons : Carsten Ball  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• ATP-profile Carsten Ball (English)
• ITF profile of Carsten Ball (English)
• Davis Cup stats by Carsten Ball (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Syd Ball | Overview | ATP World Tour | Tennis. Retrieved July 11, 2016 .