Jan Hájek

Jan Hájek
Jan Hájek at the 2013 French Open
Nickname:	Hajecek, Hajos, Gejza
Nation:	Czech Republic
Birthday:	August 7, 1983
Size:	180 cm
Weight:	80 kg
1st professional season:	2000
Resignation:	2015
Playing hand:	Right
Trainer:	Jan Subota
Prize money:	$ 1,427,267
singles
Career record:	36:78
Highest ranking:	71 (November 6, 2006)
Grand Slam record
Double
Career record:	14:25
Career title:	1
Highest ranking:	189 (May 1, 2006)
Grand Slam record
Sources: official player profiles at the ATP / WTA and ITF (see web links )

Jan Hájek (born August 7, 1983 in Olomouc , then ČSSR ) is a former Czech tennis player .

life and career

Jan Hájek started playing tennis at the age of six with his father Svatopluk Hájek, a tennis coach. In 1999 and 2000 he played a few tournaments on the junior tour and in 2000 decided to pursue a career as a professional player.

At first he played tournaments in the future category and was able to win his first title in October 2000 in Negril . The following year he won another title and reached two more finals.

After he had won three future tournaments in 2002 by August, he rose to a place in the top 300 of the tennis world rankings and was thus directly qualified for tournaments on the ATP Challenger Tour . Here, however, he was initially unable to assert himself; in 2002 and 2003 he was only able to reach a semi-finals twice, and was otherwise usually eliminated in the first or second round. In 2003 he also tried for the first time to qualify for tournaments on the ATP Tour and Grand Slam tournaments , but he always failed in qualifying.

Between August 2003 and April 2004, Hájek could not play a match due to an injury and therefore fell in the world rankings to 875th place. In 2005 things slowly went up again: Jan Hájek won two future tournaments, and he was also able to stand for several challengers Qualify tournaments, reaching the semi-finals in Genoa .

The year 2006 then brought the breakthrough: Hájek qualified at the Challenger tournament in Barletta and then marched through to the final, which he won against Stefano Galvani . In the course of the tournament he had eliminated the top 100 player Potito Starace , among other things . He also survived the qualification at the Challenger tournament in Prague and only had to admit defeat in the final. After he was eliminated in qualifying for the French Open 2006 in the third qualifying round, Jan Hájek won his second Challenger title in June 2006 in Prostějov . Only two weeks later the third title followed in Braunschweig , and with it the first entry into the top 100 of the world rankings. But that was not the high point of the season: In July 2006, Hájek won his fourth Challenger title in Poznan without losing a single set, and a month later he qualified for an ATP tournament for the first time in New Haven . Although he was eliminated in the first round against Marc Gicquel , he was still directly qualified due to his world ranking position at the 2006 US Open . In his first Grand Slam match he defeated his compatriot Lukáš Dlouhý in three sets, but then lost to Fernando González, who was 10th . From now on he played regularly at ATP tournaments, but had to struggle with shoulder problems again and again.

Jan Hájek had to give up his first round match against Juan Carlos Ferrero at the Australian Open 2007 in the first set, and at the French Open 2007 he had to play against Marcos Baghdatis after two narrow wins over Thomas Johansson and Bohdan Ulihrach in the third round finish two sentences. A week before the French Open, Hájek and his Czech colleagues had reached the final of the World Team Cup and won all three singles. In the final, however, he lost, and the Czech Republic lost 2-1 to Argentina. After he was unable to defend his Challenger titles in Prostějov and Braunschweig , and was also eliminated in Wimbledon against Juan Carlos Ferrero, after he had already led with 2-0 sets, Jan Hájek fell out of the top 100 in the world rankings and up at the end of the year even up to rank 245.

The year 2008 was even worse: A Challenger quarter-finals and a Future title in Portugal were the only highlights. He could only qualify for a single ATP tournament in Pörtschach , where he lost to Ivan Ljubičić in three sets . In the meantime, Hájek was even listed outside of the top 500.

In 2009, however, the comeback followed: At the beginning of April, Jan Hájek qualified for the Challenger tournament in Athens and made it to the semi-finals there. He did even better three weeks later in Ostrava : He marched through the qualification and into the final, where he won in two sets against Ivan Dodig , who was also a qualifier. He did the same in June 2009 in Prostějov , where he again won eight matches in a row and thus his second title after 2006. On the way to the final he defeated, among others, the former world number three Ivan Ljubičić . After a final in Bytom , the third Challenger title of the season and the seventh of his career followed in Freudenstadt in September 2009 . He was then called up for the first time in the Czech Davis Cup team for the semi-final against Croatia , where he won his debut game against Roko Karanušić . In the world rankings, after starting the year at 474th, he was now back at 110th place, and was therefore directly qualified for the ATP tournament in Vienna . There he recorded against the world number 52. Andreas Seppi his first victory at ATP level in over two years. At the end of the year he played with the Czech Republic against Spain in the Davis Cup final. Against Rafael Nadal , he had just as little chance in the individual as his entire team, which lost 5-0.

At the beginning of 2010 Jan Hájek was able to reach the second round at the Australian Open by defeating Robby Ginepri , where he was eliminated by Michail Juschny . Nevertheless, after almost three years, this meant returning to the top 100 in the world rankings. Also in May 2010 in the quarter-finals of the ATP tournament in Munich , Juschny was the final destination for Hájek. At the French Open and Wimbledon , he was eliminated in the first round, but he was able to defend his Challenger title in Prostějov . After losing the second round at the ATP tournaments in Hamburg , Umag and New Haven , Jan Hájek met 21st in the world at the US Open . Mardy Fish . After losing the first set 0: 6, he was able to win sets 2 and 3, but then only won a single game in the last two sets and was eliminated.

In January 2011 Jan Hájek had no chance at the Australian Open in the first round against Andy Roddick, who was eighth. In doubles he was able to reach the second round together with Oleksandr Dolhopolow .

He ended his career in March 2015.

Davis Cup

Between 2009 and 2013 Hájek played for the Czech Davis Cup team . In the 2009 season he reached the final with this, which they clearly defeated 0-5 in Barcelona Spain . In 2013 he was in the team's final squad, but was not used in the 3-2 victory over Serbia . This season he only played a singles and doubles game in the quarter-finals against Kazakhstan . He played a total of seven encounters. He won four of his eight singles and one of his two doubles.

successes

Legend (number of victories) Grand Slam ATP World Tour Finals ATP World Tour Masters 1000 ATP World Tour 500 ATP International Series ATP World Tour 250 (1) ATP Challenger Tour (15)

ATP title by topping Hard Court (1) Sand (0) Lawn (0)

singles

Tournament victories

No.	date	competition	Topping	Final opponent	Result
1.	March 26, 2006	Barletta (1)	sand	Stefano Galvani	6: 2, 6: 1
2.	June 10, 2006	Prostějov (1)	sand	Dominik Hrbatý	6: 3, 5: 7, 6: 2
3.	June 25, 2006	Braunschweig	sand	Fernando Vicente	6: 1, 6: 3
4th	July 16, 2006	Poses	sand	Ilija Bozoljac	6: 4, 6: 3
5.	May 3, 2009	Ostrava	sand	Ivan Dodig	7: 5, 6: 1
6th	June 6, 2009	Prostějov (2)	sand	Steve Darcis	6: 2, 1: 6, 6: 4
7th	September 6, 2009	Freudenstadt	sand	Laurent Recouderc	2: 6, 6: 3, 7: 6 5
8th.	June 5, 2010	Prostějov (3)	sand	Radek Štěpánek	6-0 task
9.	July 1, 2012	Marburg	sand	Andreas Haider-Maurer	6: 2, 6: 2
10.	18th August 2013	Meerbusch	sand	Jesse Huta Galung	6: 3, 6: 4

Double

Tournament victories

ATP World Tour

No.	date	competition	Topping	partner	Final opponent	Result
1.	January 3, 2014	Doha	Hard court	Tomáš Berdych	Alexander Peya Bruno Soares	6: 2, 6: 4

ATP Challenger Tour

No.	date	competition	Topping	partner	Final opponent	Result
1.	April 30, 2006	Bergamo	sand	Jaroslav Pospíšil	Marcelo Charpentier Tomas Tenconi	6: 2, 6: 2
2.	September 7, 2008	Dusseldorf	sand	Tomáš Zíb	Lukáš Rosol Igor Zelenay	1: 6, 6: 2, [10: 7]
3.	May 3, 2009	Ostrava	sand	Robin Vik	Matúš Horečný Tomáš Janči	6: 2, 6: 4
4th	September 6, 2009	Freudenstadt	sand	Dušan Karol	Martin Kližan Adil Shamasdin	4: 6, 6: 4, [10: 5]
5.	November 20, 2011	Bratislava	Hard court (i)	Lukáš Lacko	Lukáš Rosol David Škoch	7: 5, 7: 5

Final participation

No.	date	competition	Topping	partner	Final opponent	Result
1.	May 6, 2007	Munich	sand	Jaroslav Levinsky	Philipp Kohlschreiber Michail Juschny	1: 6, 4: 6

Web links

Commons : Jan Hájek  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• ATP profile of Jan Hájek (English)
• ITF profile of Jan Hájek (English)
• Davis Cup stats by Jan Hájek (English)

Individual evidence

1. ^ Marcin Motyka: Jan Hajek zakończył karierę. In: sportowefakty.wp.pl. March 10, 2015, accessed March 13, 2018 (Polish).