Junior career and beginnings on the professional tour (until 2004)
Smeets, who was born in Sliedrecht in the Netherlands and emigrated to Australia at the age of 13, already took part in three of the four Grand Slam tournaments as a junior and reached the semi-finals in doubles at the Wimbledon Championships in 2002 . His best placement was a 24th place in January 2003. At the age of 17 he started playing the first tournaments on the ITF Future Tour and ATP Challenger Tour . Shortly after his 18th birthday, he won his first double title on the Future Tour. At the end of 2004, he was placed around 450 in the world rankings in both singles and doubles .
First successes in doubles and career record (2005-2006)
For the Australian Open in 2005 he received a wildcard for doubles. At the side of Domenic Marafiote , he was eliminated against the Spanish pairing Albert Costa and Rafael Nadal . He made his individual debut on the ATP World Tour after successfully qualifying in Washington . On the Future Tour, he won four titles this year, jumping up to 222nd place in the world rankings. In the individual, he also managed to jump into the top 300 with four futures titles. In the following year, Smeets achieved his greatest success in a Grand Slam. At the Australian Open he was again in double field with a wildcard. Together with his compatriot Paul Baccanello they made it into the round of 16 by beating Jonathan Erlich and Andy Ram, who were seeded in 6th position, in the second round . There they lost in the third set in the tie-break Jan Hernych and Ivo Karlović . At the Wimbledon Championships he moved into the main draw with Zack Fleishman as the lucky loser and they won their opening game. In November he won his first two double titles at Challenger level with Nathan Healey in Caloundra and Kawana . Through these successes, he managed to achieve his career record in doubles with 109th place.
Breakthrough in Individuals (2007-2008)
The year 2007 began for Smeets with the successful qualification for the tournament in Sydney , where he defeated the top 100 player Andreas Seppi in the final qualifying round . In the first round he lost against fifth seeded Czech Tomáš Berdych . At the Australian Open , he received a wildcard for the individual field and defeated the qualifier Lukáš Lacko in the first round before he had to admit defeat to Berdych again. In doubles he also made it into the second round. He won four individual titles on the Future Tour and his first individual title on the Challenger Tour in Lubbock . With these successes he made it into the top 200 in the world for the first time and ended the year in 150th place. At the turn of the year Smeets surprised with his partner Chris Guccione in Adelaide . They played their way through to the final and defeated both the third seeded and second seeded pairing and only had to admit defeat to the duo Martín García and Marcelo Melo in three sets in the final.
At the French Open he was for the first time in the individual field, but retired without a chance with only one game win against Berdych. In July he won his second title in singles on the Challenger Tour. In Dublin he defeated the Dane Frederik Nielsen in two sets. In doubles he also had two more successes on the Challenger Tour. In Mexico City he won with Carsten Ball , in Manchester he was successful with Adam Feeney . At the US Open , he also survived qualification for the first time, but lost in four sets against Mardy Fish . In November he achieved his best individual placement with 146th place and improved by over 200 places compared to the end of 2006.
Slipping in the world rankings and end of career (2009-2011)
In 2009 Smeets only reached a final on the Challenger Tour in Burnie . As a result, he played more tournaments on the Future Tour and slipped out of the top 400 singles in the world rankings at the end of the year. Since he did not play a professional tournament in 2010, he was no longer in the world rankings. At the end of 2011 he played two tournaments on the Future Tour and ended his active career in October 2011. After his career ended, Smeets played in the Asia-Pacific Tennis League for the Brisbane Chargers.
Australia
Lubbock
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Dušan Vemić
Dublin
Frederik Nielsen
Alexander Peya Lars Uebel
Rimouski
Daniel King-Turner
Mexico city
Neil Bamford Joshua Goodall
Harsh Mankad Ashutosh Singh
Martín García Marcelo Melo