Tim Smyczek

Tim Smyczek
Tim Smyczek at Wimbledon 2014
Nickname:	Smee
Nation:	United States
Birthday:	December 30, 1987
Size:	175 cm
Weight:	73 kg
1st professional season:	2006
Playing hand:	Right, two-handed backhand
Trainer:	Dustin Taylor
Prize money:	$ 2,067,979
singles
Career record:	43:85
Highest ranking:	68 (April 6, 2015)
Current placement:	481
Grand Slam record
Double
Career record:	8:11
Highest ranking:	160 (February 24, 2014)
Grand Slam record
Last update of the infobox: March 16, 2020
Sources: official player profiles at the ATP / WTA and ITF (see web links )

Tim Smyczek (born December 30, 1987 in Milwaukee , Wisconsin ) is an American tennis player .

life and career

2002–2005: Junior career

Tim Smyczek started playing tennis at the age of three. Since 2002 he has competed regularly in international junior tournaments. In the course of his junior career, he reached several finals and was able to win a title. His best performance in Grand Slam tournaments was reaching the semi-finals at Wimbledon in 2005 .

2002–2007: First successes in future tournaments

Tim Smyczek competed in qualifying for a future tournament for the first time in 2002. However, it was not until the end of 2004 that he was able to win a future main round match for the first time and was thus included in the tennis world rankings for the first time . In 2006 he finally won his first title, he also reached two more future semifinals this year, and was able to defeat the top 200 player Rajeev Ram on his Challenger debut in Yuba City . In 2007 Smyczek remained untitled, his best result was reaching a future final.

2008–2009: ATP debut and first challenger final

In February 2008 Tim Smyczek was able to qualify for the first time in the main draw of an ATP tournament in San José . However, he lost his debut against top 100 player Mardy Fish , with whom he has been training regularly ever since. In the further course of the year Smyczek reached a future final and was also able to increasingly prevail in Challenger tournaments. So he reached a semi-final and a quarter-final there. He could not qualify for other ATP tournaments this year, so he was eliminated from the US Open as in 2005 and 2006 in the first qualifying round. Nevertheless, he finished a year in the top 400 of the world rankings for the first time. Tim Smyczek achieved the next major success in June 2009 at the Challenger tournament in Winnetka , where he marched through to the final as a qualifier, defeating the top 200 player Donald Young , before losing to Alex Kuznetsov in the final . In the following months he reached a Challenger semi-final and a quarter-final, but he was denied qualification for an ATP tournament that year.

2010: First ATP match win and Grand Slam debut

Tim Smyczek finally managed to do this in February 2010, as he had two years earlier in San José , but lost in the first main round to Benjamin Becker . A month later at the Indian Wells Masters , he just lost as a qualifier in the first main round against former world number one Carlos Moyá . In March 2010, Smyczek was in Rimouski for the second time in his career in a Challenger final, but he lost again, this time to Rik De Voest . In June 2010, as in the previous year, he reached the final in Winnetka, but this time too he lost against Brian Dabul . In July 2010, Tim Smyczek achieved his greatest success to date: At the ATP tournament in Los Angeles , he won his first ATP match as a qualifier against the top 100 player Teimuras Gabashvili . In the second round against world number four Andy Murray , Smyczek was able to win a set, but lost the match in three sets against the eventual finalist. In August 2010, Smyczek reached the final of the USTA US Open Wildcard Playoffs , where he prevailed in his first best-of-five match in three sets against Ryan Harrison , securing a wildcard for the 2010 US Open . On his Grand Slam debut , he met Thomaz Bellucci , who was placed 26th, in the first round , and was eliminated in three sets. After reaching a Challenger semi-finals in September, Smyczek ended a year in the top 200 of the world rankings for the first time.

2011: First ATP quarter-finals and Challenger title

In early 2011, Tim Smyczek missed qualifying for the Australian Open . In February 2011 he received a wild card for the ATP tournament in San José . After a first round win over Robert Farah , he prevailed in the second round in three sets against the 8th-placed Kei Nishikori and thus reached his first ATP quarter-finals. There he was eliminated in two tight sets against the top 20 player Gaël Monfils . As a result of this success, he improved to 158th place in the world rankings, his best ranking so far. A month later, Tim Smyczek was able to defeat a top 100 player again at the Masters tournament in Indian Wells after successfully qualifying with Ilja Martschenko . In the second round he already had three match points against Philipp Kohlschreiber , who was in 32nd position , but could not convert them and ultimately lost the match in the tie-break of the third set. After he was eliminated in Houston as a qualifier against later tournament winner Ryan Sweeting in the first round, Tim Smyczek prevailed in the final of the USTA French Open Wildcard Playoffs in four sets against Donald Young at the end of April 2011 , and thus won a wildcard for his second grand -Slam tournament. In his French Open debut, however, he lost in the first main round against the later quarter-finalist Juan Ignacio Chela . After he failed in qualifying at the ATP tournaments at the Queen's Club in London and in Atlanta , Smyczek was able to qualify for the main draw in July 2011 in Los Angeles and Washington , where he was eliminated in the first round. The rest of the year passed without any further highlights for Smyczek.

From 2012: title wins on the Challenger Tour

At the beginning of 2012, Smyczek only narrowly failed in the final qualifying round of the Australian Open . After he narrowly lost in the first round as a qualifier in San José in February 2012 , he was able to prevail two weeks later in Delray Beach in the first round against the top 20 player Jürgen Melzer , who had just won the Memphis tournament . In the second round, however, Smyczek was eliminated against Bernard Tomic, who was in 8th position . At the beginning of March 2012, as in the two previous years, he successfully qualified for the main draw at the Indian Wells Masters , followed by a first round defeat. In April 2012, Smyczek reached a Challenger final for the fourth time in his career by beating the top 100 player Igor Kunizyn in Tallahassee, among other things . There, after winning the first set, he benefited from the injury-related abandonment of his opponent Frank Dancevic and thus won his first title. The second tournament victory in Champaign followed in November , when he defeated Jack Sock in the final in three sets. The following season Smyczek won the singles competition in Knoxville and the doubles competition with Steve Johnson in Charlottesville . On the World Tour he also made it to the finals in doubles in Newport with Rhyne Williams . After winning the first set, Nicolas Mahut and Édouard Roger-Vasselin equalized in the second set and won the game with a 10: 5 match tie-break. At the US Open he reached the third round, the best result in a Grand Slam tournament in his career.

It wasn't until 2015 that Smyczek regained tournament victories on the Challenger Tour: he secured individual titles in Dallas and Tiburon . Due to his success, he reached 68th place in the world rankings on April 6th, his career best. Smyczek secured his sixth and seventh tournament victory on the Challenger Tour in November 2017 in Charlottesville and Champaign . After staying in the top 200 for a long time, with brief exceptions, Smyczek fell back in the world rankings from 2019 and was 481th in the individual at the time of the suspension of the tournament due to the COVID-19 pandemic .

successes

Legend (number of victories)

Grand Slam

ATP World Tour Finals

ATP World Tour Masters 1000

ATP World Tour 500

ATP World Tour 250

ATP Challenger Tour (9)

singles

Tournament victories

No.	date	competition	Topping	Final opponent	Result
1.	April 7, 2012	Tallahassee	Hard court	Frank Dancevic	7: 5 up.
2.	17th November 2012	Champaign (1)	Hard court (i)	Jack Sock	2: 6, 7: 6 1 , 7: 5
3.	November 10, 2013	Knoxville	Hard court (i)	Peter Polansky	6: 4, 6: 2
4th	February 8, 2015	Dallas	Hard court (i)	Rajeev Ram	6: 2, 4: 1 up.
5.	4th October 2015	Tiburon	Hard court	Denis Kudla	1: 6, 6: 1, 7: 6 7
6th	5th November 2017	Charlottesville	Hard court (i)	Tennys Sandgren	6: 7 5 , 6: 3, 6: 2
7th	18th November 2017	Champaign (2)	Hard court (i)	Bjorn Fratangelo	6: 2, 6: 4

Double

Tournament victories

No.	date	competition	Topping	partner	Final opponent	Result
1.	April 27, 2008	Baton Rouge	Hard court	Phillip Simmonds	Ryan Harrison Michael Venus	2: 6, 6: 1, [10: 4]
2.	3rd November 2013	Charlottesville	Hard court (i)	Steve Johnson	Jarmere Jenkins Donald Young	6: 4, 6: 3

Final participation

No.	date	competition	Topping	partner	Final opponent	Result
1.	15th July 2013	Newport	race	Rhyne Williams	Nicolas Mahut Édouard Roger-Vasselin	7: 6 4 , 2: 6, [5:10]

Web links

Commons : Tim Smyczek  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• ATP profile of Tim Smyczek (English)
• ITF profile Tim Smyczek (English)
• Official Homepage (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Mahut also grabs double titles. In: tennisnet.com. July 15, 2013, accessed May 25, 2020 .