Ricardo Mello

Ricardo Mello
Mello at the US Open in 2010
Nickname:	Papagayo
Nation:	Brazil
Birthday:	December 21, 1980
Size:	175 cm
Weight:	73 kg
1st professional season:	1999
Resignation:	2013
Playing hand:	Left
Trainer:	Carlos Albano
Prize money:	$ 1,483,919
singles
Career record:	60:94
Career title:	1
Highest ranking:	50 (July 25, 2005)
Grand Slam record
Double
Career record:	11:25
Highest ranking:	118 (July 11, 2005)
Grand Slam record
Sources: official player profiles at the ATP / WTA and ITF (see web links )

Ricardo Mello (born December 21, 1980 in Campinas ) is a former Brazilian tennis player .

life and career

Until 2000: Junior career and first successes in future tournaments

Ricardo Mello started playing tennis at the Campinas Equestrian Club at the age of six. In 1997 and 1998 he played tournaments in South America and Europe on the junior tour. He reached several finals and won a title, defeating among others the one year younger David Nalbandian . His best placement in the junior world rankings was 15th.

As early as 1996, at the age of sixteen, he received a wild card for a Challenger tournament in Campinas, where he lost in the first round to Gustavo Kuerten , who was then up-and-coming .

Since 1998 Mello has been collecting first world ranking points at future tournaments in South America. The following year he won two tournaments in Uruguay and Paraguay and climbed into the top 500 of the tennis world rankings . In 2000 Ricardo Mello won two more future titles, and he won matches in Challenger tournaments for the first time.

2001–2003: Challenger title and ATP debut

In July 2001 he celebrated his first Challenger title in Campos do Jordão . He also reached another Challenger final and two semifinals that year. At the US Open 2001 he tried for the first time to qualify for a Grand Slam tournament , but he was eliminated in the third qualifying round. He did better in September 2001 at the ATP tournament in Costa do Sauípe , where Mello qualified for the main draw. There he defeated André Sá in the first round and in the second round with Nicolás Massú for the first time a top 100 player before he was eliminated in the quarter-finals against Alexandre Simoni . In the world rankings he rose to number 133 by the end of the year.

In 2002 Ricardo Mello reached three Challenger Finals, of which he was able to win two. He managed a series of 13 match wins in a row when he consecutively won the tournaments of Campos do Jordão and Belo Horizonte and then reached the semifinals in Gramado . At the ATP level, he was not so successful: He lost his only match in Costa do Sauípe and failed to qualify for a Grand Slam tournament in three attempts.

In 2003 he did not succeed either; his best result in Grand Slam tournaments was reaching the third qualifying round of the US Open . But he was able to qualify for three ATP tournaments by April 2003 and reached the quarter-finals in Houston , where he had no chance against world number two Andre Agassi . Since he had climbed to 111th place in the world rankings, Ricardo Mello was directly qualified in several ATP tournaments in the following months; however, he never got past the first round. It was not until September 2003 in Costa do Sauípe that he was able to win an ATP match again and even defeated a top 50 player with Juan Ignacio Chela before he had no chance in the quarter-finals against Gustavo Kuerten as he had been seven years earlier. At the end of the year Mello reached two Challenger Finals, of which he was able to win one in Puebla . He also won a double title in Quito alongside Alexandre Simoni .

2004–2005: Grand Slam debut, first ATP title and entry into the Top 100

At the Australian Open 2004 Mello qualified for the first time for a Grand Slam tournament, but he was eliminated in the first round against David Nalbandian . He also suffered a first-round defeat at the French Open after successfully qualifying against Raemon Sluiter . In August 2004 Mello reached the final at the Challenger tournaments of Belo Horizonte and Gramado , and both times the opponent was Janko Tipsarević . While Tipsarević still had the upper hand in Belo Horizonte, Mello was able to defeat him in the second attempt and thus celebrate his fifth Challenger title. This was the beginning of the most successful weeks of his career so far: At the US Open 2004 he qualified for a Grand Slam tournament for the third time and was able to defeat Juan Ignacio Chela , who was 17th in the first round . He also survived the second round, but was eliminated by Tommy Haas . This earned him a position in the top 100 of the world rankings for the first time. But that's not all, two weeks later the first ATP title followed in Delray Beach . Mello defeated three players from the top 30 with Mardy Fish , Mario Ančić and Vincent Spadea in the final. In the following months, he was also able to reach the quarter-finals in Shanghai and the second round in Tokyo , and ended the year at number 71 in the world rankings .

2005 began with a Challenger title in São Paulo . Ricardo Mello qualified directly at the Australian Open . After a first round win over Alberto Martín , he retired in the second round in four tight sets against Guillermo Coria, who was 6th . Due to his world ranking position, Mello played almost only ATP tournaments this year. His best results were reaching the semi-finals in Costa do Sauípe, where he lost in three sets to the then nineteen-year-old Rafael Nadal , a quarter-finals in Los Angeles and the second round at the Masters tournaments in Miami and Montreal as well as at the US Open . In addition, this year he was appointed to the Brazilian Davis Cup team for the first time , and helped his team to rise to America Group I with four individual victories. In the match against David Josepa from the Netherlands Antilles he achieved the rare feat of a “triple Bagels “: He won the match 6-0, 6-0, 6-0. Nevertheless, the results of this year were not enough to defend the points from last year, and so Mello fell out of the top 100 of the world rankings again at the end of the year after reaching his best world ranking position in July with rank 50.

2006–2009: dry spell without major successes

Therefore Ricardo Mello played on the Challenger Tour again in 2006. He won two tournaments in Florianópolis and Campos do Jordão , and he reached the semi-finals in three other tournaments. At the ATP level, Mello was only able to reach the second round twice in seven tournaments. Worth mentioning is the match against the then nineteen year old Andy Murray in Newport , which Murray could only win in the third set in the tie-break. In the Davis Cup, Ricardo Mello contributed two individual victories to the fact that Brazil got into the play-off round for a place in the world group, where they lost to Sweden. In the world rankings, he slipped down to 183rd place, at the end of the year he was 134th.

2007 turned out to be the worst year so far for Ricardo Mello: he did not win a single title and did not make it past the quarter-finals in any tournament. After he was eliminated in the first round of five Challenger tournaments in a row in October and November 2007, he fell in the world rankings to 257th. In 2008 Mello could not win a title, but he reached two Challenger finals as well two more semifinals.

In 2009 things went up again: Right from the start Ricardo Mello was able to celebrate his ninth Challenger title in São Paulo , the first in over two and a half years. The next title followed in Brasília in August 2009 . In three ATP tournaments he was able to qualify for the main field, but lost in each case in the first round. At the US Open 2009 he failed in the third qualifying round. After winning a double challenger title in São Paulo with Franco Ferreiro in November , Mello ended the year at number 151 in the world.

2010–2011: re-entry into the top 100

As in the previous year, 2010 began with a Challenger title in São Paulo . In February 2010 Ricardo Mello entered the ATP tournament in Costa do Sauípe with a wildcard, where - apart from the tournament victory in Delray Beach - he had his greatest successes on the ATP Tour so far. And this year he was able to advance to the semi-finals and defeated, among other things, the current Brazilian number 1 Thomaz Bellucci . After successfully qualifying for the Masters tournaments in Indian Wells and Miami and reaching the final at the Challenger tournament in Curitiba , Ricardo Mello was in the top 100 of the world rankings for the first time in over four years at the end of April 2010. As a result, he was now qualified again for Grand Slam tournaments and was able to reach the second round after defeats in the first round at the French Open and in Wimbledon at the US Open by defeating Björn Phau . He also reached two more Challenger finals during the season, one of which he won in Salvador . In September 2010 Ricardo Mello appeared in the playoff round against India for the first time in three years for the Brazilian Davis Cup team. He won his first match in five sets against Somdev Devvarman , but then lost the decisive fifth game against Rohan Bopanna , so that Brazil lost 3-2 and missed the place in the world group.

Ricardo Mello was also able to defend his Challenger title in São Paulo in January 2011 . At the Australian Open , he met his compatriot Thomaz Bellucci , who was 30th, in the first round , against whom he was eliminated in a five-set match. In February 2011 Ricardo Mello reached the semi-finals at the ATP tournament in Costa do Sauípe for the third time after 2005 and 2010. Among other things, he defeated Albert Montañés , who was in second place, and finished off Pablo Andújar in less than an hour of playing time in the quarterfinals 6: 1, 6: 0. In the semifinals, however, he was clearly inferior to Oleksandr Dolhopolow and thus missed the leap into the final in the third attempt. In the further course of the year Ricardo Mello did not get beyond the second round in any ATP tournament. Only the two-set victory over the top 30 player John Isner in Belgrade in April 2011 as well as the first time reaching the second round in Wimbledon by defeating the qualifier Frank Dancevic should be emphasized . In October 2011 Mello won two more Challenger tournaments in Recife and São José do Rio Preto . He is one of four players who have won 15 or more Challenger singles titles in their career.

On February 11, 2013 Ricardo Mello ended his career after his first round defeat against Martín Alund at the Brasil Open 2013 .

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 (19)

singles

Victories

ATP World Tour

No.	date	competition	Topping	Final opponent	Result
1.	September 19, 2004	Delray Beach	Hard court	Vincent Spadea	7: 6 2 , 6: 3

ATP Challenger Tour

No.	date	competition	Topping	Final opponent	Result
1.	July 8, 2001	Campos do Jordao (1)	Hard court	Alexandre Simoni	7: 6 6 , 4: 6, 7: 6 5
2.	July 28, 2002	Campos do Jordao (2)	Hard court	Maximilian Abel	7: 6 2 , 6: 3
3.	August 4, 2002	Belo Horizonte	Hard court	Alexandre Simoni	6: 3, 6: 3
4th	November 23, 2003	Puebla	Hard court	Markus Hantschk	7: 6 5 , 6: 4
5.	August 8, 2004	Gramado	Hard court	Janko Tipsarevic	2: 6, 7: 5, 6: 4
6th	January 9, 2005	Sao Paulo (1)	Hard court	Giovanni Lapentti	4: 6, 6: 2, 7: 6 0
7th	April 16, 2006	Florianópolis	sand	Diego Junqueira	6: 3, 5: 7, 7: 6 4
8th.	July 29, 2006	Campos do Jordao (3)	Hard court	Ivo Klec	6: 3, 6: 4
9.	January 11, 2009	Sao Paulo (2)	Hard court	Paul Capdeville	6: 2, 6: 4
10.	August 16, 2009	Brasília	Hard court	Juan Ignacio Chela	7: 6 2 , 6: 4
11.	January 10, 2010	Sao Paulo (3)	Hard court	Eduardo Schwank	6: 3, 6: 1
12.	August 21, 2010	Salvador da Bahia	Hard court	Thiago Alves	5: 7, 6: 4, 6: 4
13.	January 9, 2011	Sao Paulo (4)	Hard court	Rafael Camilo	6: 2, 6: 1
14th	October 2, 2011	Recife	Hard court	Rogério Dutra da Silva	7: 6 5 , 6: 3
15th	October 30, 2011	Sao José do Rio Preto	sand	Eduardo Schwank	6: 4, 6: 2

Double

Victories

No.	date	competition	Topping	partner	Final opponent	Result
1.	October 12, 2003	Quito	sand	Alexandre Simoni	Hugo Armando Ricardo Schlachter	6: 3, 6: 4
2.	July 25, 2004	Campos do Jordão	Hartzplatz	Iván Miranda	Alejandro Hernández André Sá	6: 3, 6: 4
3.	November 1, 2009	São Paulo	sand	Franco Ferreiro	Diego Junqueira David Marrero	6: 3, 6: 3

Web links

Commons : Ricardo Mello  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• ATP profile Ricardo Mello (English)
• ITF profile Ricardo Mello (English)
• Davis Cup statistics Ricardo Mello (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Ricardo Mello encerra a carreira no Brasil Open 2013 - Confederação Brasileira de Tênis. In: cbt-tenis.com.br. Retrieved July 24, 2016 (Portuguese).