Nicolas Kiefer

Nicolas Kiefer
Nicolas Kiefer (2008)
Nickname:	Kiwi, Nico
Nation:	Germany
Birthday:	5th July 1977 (age 43)
Size:	183 cm
Weight:	80 kg
1st professional season:	1995
Resignation:	2010
Playing hand:	Right, two-handed backhand
Trainer:	Sascha Nensel
Prize money:	$ 7,480,465
singles
Career record:	366: 274
Career title:	6th
Highest ranking:	4 (January 10, 2000)
Grand Slam record
Double
Career record:	92: 123
Career title:	3
Highest ranking:	56 (February 17, 2003)
Grand Slam record
Olympic games
Sources: official player profiles at the ATP / WTA and ITF (see web links )

Nicolas Kiefer (born July 5, 1977 in Holzminden ) is a former German tennis player . His greatest success was winning the silver medal in doubles alongside Rainer Schüttler at the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens . He won six tournaments on the ATP World Tour and was in a final 13 times. He is one of the most successful German tennis players of the Open Era .

Tennis career

Beginnings

Nicolas Kiefer's mother is French, his father was a physical education teacher at a private high school in Dassel ( Northeim district ). He started playing tennis at the age of six and was soon discovered as a talent. Kiefer was trained by Martin Rausch in Einbeck and then promoted in the Hanover high-performance center. When he won the titles at the Grand Slam tournaments in Melbourne ( Australian Open ) and New York ( US Open ) on the junior tour in 1995 and also made it to the final of the junior competition at Wimbledon , he was considered perhaps the greatest German tennis talent since Boris Becker . Kiefer's breakthrough on the ATP Tour came in 1997 when he reached the quarter-finals at Wimbledon and won his first professional tournament victory in Toulouse. At position 32 in the world tennis rankings , Kiefer ended the season as the best German for the first time. In 1998 he reached the quarter-finals of the Australian Open for the first time, but surprisingly failed there against the French Nicolas Escudé . Kiefer finished the season in 35th place.

World class

Kiefer made the leap to the top of the world in the 1999 season when he played four finals on the professional tour, of which he won two ( Halle and Tashkent) and was among the top ten players in the world for the first time. He finished the season in 6th place and was able to take part for the first and only time in his career in the season-closing Masters Cup , which was then held in Hanover. After a loss to Thomas Enqvist Kiefer reached the semi-finals with victories over Todd Martin and Yevgeny Kafelnikow , which he lost to Pete Sampras .

The year 2000

The season got off to a promising start for Kiefer. He reached the quarter-finals at the Australian Open, but there was defeated by the Swede Magnus Norman in four sets. After this tournament, Kiefer was in fourth place in the world rankings, his best placement. Numerous injuries and disappointing results followed. In September, Kiefer was able to reach the quarter-finals of the US Open, where he was defeated by the eventual tournament winner Marat Safin . Despite two tournament victories in Dubai and Hong Kong , Kiefer described this year as the "epidemic season" of his career, as he was repeatedly stopped by injuries and the season finally ended in 20th place.

2001 to 2005

The years 2001 to 2005 were marked by mixed achievements by Kiefer. Although he was able to reach nine more finals during this period, he did not manage to win. That gave him the sad record of most defeats in the final on the ATP Tour in a row. In 2002 and 2003, Kiefer was rarely among the top 50 players in the world, and as a beacon of hope in German men's tennis, he increasingly had to step back from Tommy Haas . It was not until the 2004 season, in which he reached four tournament finals, that Kiefer found his way back to better form. At the 2004 Olympic Games , Kiefer also made it into the final alongside Rainer Schüttler , where they lost in five sets against Fernando González and Nicolás Massú from Chile. In the fourth set, the German doubles just lost the tiebreak 7: 9 in a 2-1 set lead.

Injury and another comeback

At the start of the 2006 season, Kiefer reached the semi-finals at the Australian Open, the best performance of his career in a Grand Slam tournament. The 28-year-old managed to make another jump among the top 15 in the world. At the French Open , Kiefer then suffered a wrist injury that forced him to take a year-long break. At the Gerry Weber Open 2007 in Halle (Westphalia) he made his comeback, but lost to Tomáš Berdych . His first success after the long injury break he celebrated on the tour two weeks later in the first round of Wimbledon against Filippo Volandri . However, he was eliminated in the third round in a very close match that could not be played to an end due to persistent rain until four days later than planned against Novak Đoković (then number five in the world rankings). At the Countrywide Classic in Los Angeles , he made it to the semi-finals, but had to cancel this due to a knee injury.

In July 2008, Kiefer reached the final of a tournament of the Tennis Masters Series in Toronto for the first time , in which he had to admit defeat to designated world number one Rafael Nadal after victories over the two top ten players Nikolai Dawydenko and James Blake . This result brought him back to the top 20 of the tennis world rankings for the first time after his comeback and made him number one again in German tennis. At the Olympic Games in Beijing he lost to Paul-Henri Mathieu in the round of 16 . In doubles he failed on the side of Rainer Schüttler in the first round against the Austrian doubles Jürgen Melzer and Julian Knowle .

2009

In March Kiefer reached the third round at the Masters tournaments in Indian Wells and Miami , but lost there to Andy Roddick (Indian Wells) and Roger Federer (Miami). In May he reached the round of 16 in Munich and the second round at the French Open. He also proved to be a strong support for the German team at the World Team Cup in Düsseldorf, where he won all four games alongside Mischa Zverev . At the Gerry Weber Open in Halle (Westphalia) he had to give up his round of 16 match in the individual competition against Jürgen Melzer because of an abdominal muscle injury, he could not even compete in the semi-finals in doubles (again with Zverev). In July he reached the semi-finals in Stuttgart , which he lost to Jérémy Chardy , and the quarter-finals in Gstaad , where he had to give up again against the eventual winner Thomaz Bellucci .

2010 - end of career

This year Kiefer only played four tournaments. At the Gerry Weber Open he caused a sensation again when he beat Russian Michail Juschny in three sets in round one . In August, Kiefer had a daughter. At the end of 2010, Nicolas Kiefer announced his resignation, explaining that he wanted to spend as much time as possible with his family and that after 15 years it was time to start a new phase of life.

successes

Legend (number of titles) Grand Slam Tennis Masters Cup ATP Masters Series ATP International Series Gold (2) ATP International Series (7)

Title after covering Hard Court (7) Sand (0) Grass (1) Carpet (1)

singles

Victories

No.	date	competition	Topping	Final opponent	Bottom line
1.	October 5, 1997	Toulouse	Hard court	Mark Philippoussis	7: 5, 5: 7, 6: 4
2.	April 18, 1999	Tokyo	Hard court	Wayne Ferreira	7: 6, 7: 5
3.	June 13, 1999	Hall	race	Nickla's cult	6: 3, 6: 2
4th	September 19, 1999	Tashkent	Hard court	George Bastl	6: 4, 6: 2
5.	February 13, 2000	Dubai	Hard court	Juan Carlos Ferrero	7: 5, 4: 6, 6: 3
6th	October 8, 2000	Hong Kong	Hard court	Mark Philippoussis	7: 6, 2: 6, 6: 2

Final participation

No.	date	competition	Topping	Final opponent	Bottom line
1.	October 19, 1997	Singapore	Carpet (i)	Magnus Gustafsson	6: 4, 3: 6, 3: 6
2.	February 21, 1999	Dubai	Hard court	Jérôme Golmard	4: 6, 2: 6
3.	October 25, 1999	Vienna	Carpet (i)	Greg Rusedski	7: 6, 6: 2, 3: 6, 5: 7, 4: 6
4th	October 14, 2001	Moscow (1)	Carpet (i)	Yevgeny Kafelnikov	4: 6, 5: 7
5.	June 23, 2002	Hall (1)	race	Yevgeny Kafelnikov	6: 2, 4: 6, 4: 6
6th	June 23, 2003	Hall (2)	race	Roger Federer	1: 6, 3: 6
7th	February 22, 2004	Memphis	Hard court (i)	Joachim Johansson	6: 7, 3: 6
8th.	March 7, 2004	Las Vegas	Hard court	Vincent Spadea	5: 7, 7: 6, 3: 6
9.	July 25, 2004	Indianapolis	Hard court	Andy Roddick	2: 6, 3: 6
10.	July 18, 2004	los Angeles	Hard court	Tommy Haas	6: 7 6 , 4: 6
11.	October 16, 2005	Moscow (2)	Carpet (i)	Igor Andreyev	7: 5, 6: 7, 2: 6
12.	October 30, 2005	St. Petersburg	Carpet (i)	Thomas Johansson	4: 6, 2: 6
13.	August 27, 2008	Toronto	Hard court	Rafael Nadal	3: 6, 2: 6

Double

No.	date	competition	Topping	partner	Final opponent	Bottom line
1.	October 25, 1998	Ostrava	Carpet (i)	David Prinosil	David Adams Pavel Vízner	6: 4, 6: 3
2.	July 28, 2002	los Angeles	Hard court	Sébastien Grosjean	Justin Gimelstob Michaël Llodra	6: 4, 6: 4
3.	October 5, 2003	Tokyo	Hard court	Justin Gimelstob	Scott Humphries Mark Merklein	6: 7, 6: 3, 7: 6

Grand Slam results singles

The lap reached is always given

competition	2010	2009	2008	2007	2006	2005	2004	2003	2002	2001	2000	1999	1998	1997	1996	1995	Career
Australian Open	-	-	1	-	HF	1	1	-	1	2	VF	3	VF	-	1	-	HF
French Open	-	2	-	-	3	AF	2	2	1	1	1	1	2	1	-	-	AF
Wimbledon		1	3	3	-	3	1	1	3	AF	1	2	3	VF	-	-	VF
US Open		2	-	2	-	AF	AF	2	1	1	VF	3	3	-	-	-	VF

Grand Slam results doubles

The lap reached is always given

competition	2009	2008	2007	2006	2005	2004	2003	2002	2001	2000	1999	1998	1997	1996	1995	Career
Australian Open	-	-	-	-	-	2	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	2
French Open	-	-	-	-	-	1	1	-	1	-	-	-	-	-	-	1
Wimbledon	-	-	-	-	-	-	2	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	2
US Open	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	1	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	1

Others

Kiefer is an enthusiastic football and ice hockey fan of the Hannover 96 and Hannover Scorpions clubs . He is a member of the Hannover 96 club and plays in the Bundesliga team's jersey.

Kiefer is also involved in charitable and social projects, for example at “bed by night” in Hanover, in a container village on Welfenplatz (facility for caring for street children), at “Aktion Kindertraum” and together with the human rights organization Amnesty International in the fight against torture .

In 2016, Kiefer accompanied the Grand Slam tournaments for the pan-European sports broadcaster Eurosport . In 2016 at the US Open, together with Matthias Stach , he hosted the live show “Aufschlag Kiefer”, in which the games of the previous day were analyzed.

Web links

Commons : Nicolas Kiefer  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• ATP profile of Nicolas Kiefer (English)
• ITF profile Nicolas Kiefer (English)
• Davis Cup stats by Nicolas Kiefer (English)
• official homepage
• Literature by and about Nicolas Kiefer in the catalog of the German National Library

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Nicolas Kiefer has a daughter. In: rp-online.de. Rheinische Post, August 12, 2010, accessed on October 4, 2017 . 
2. ↑ Nicolas Kiefer ends his career. In: faz.net. December 30, 2010, accessed October 4, 2017 . 
3. ↑ French Open 2016: Nicolas Kiefer strengthens Eurosport team. In: eurosport.de. May 17, 2016, accessed September 6, 2016 . 
4. ↑ New show: Kiefer analyzes the stars at the US Open. In: eurosport.de. August 29, 2016. Retrieved September 6, 2016 .