Paul-Henri Mathieu

French tennis player

Paul Henri Mathieu (pɔl ɑ̃ʁi matjø; born 12 January 1982) is a French former professional tennis player. He won four singles titles on the ATP Tour. His best singles performance in an ATP World Tour Masters 1000 tournament was reaching the semifinals of the 2005 Canadian Open. He achieved a career high ATP singles ranking of world No. 12 in April 2008.

Paul Henri Mathieu was born in Strasbourg, France. He first began playing tennis when he was three and a half years old with his older brother Pierre Yves. From 1997 to 2000, Paul Henri trained at the IMG Bollettieri Tennis Academy in Bradenton, Florida before moving back to Paris.

As a junior, Mathieu posted a singles record of 42–15 and a doubles record of 34–12, reaching as high as world no. 6 in singles and world no. 19 in doubles in January 2000. Mathieu won the boys' singles title at the 2000 French Open, defeating Tommy Robredo 3–6, 7–6(7–3), 6–2 in the final.

Mathieu made his ATP World Tour singles main draw debut in July 2000 in the Austrian town of Kitzbühel. 2002 was Mathieu's breakthrough year. He made the fourth round of the French Open, losing to Andre Agassi in five sets, despite having a two set lead. Later on in the year, he confirmed his potential by winning back to back tournaments in Moscow and Lyon. He holds the distinction of being the last player to beat Pete Sampras before his retirement, which he did at the 2002 TD Waterhouse Cup. On 14 October, he became world no. 36, and his progress won him the ATP Newcomer of the Year award for 2002. He also nearly won the Davis Cup in 2002 with the French Davis Cup team, but lost the deciding rubber of the final to Mikhail Youzhny of Russia, once more after relinquishing a two set advantage.

In 2005, he achieved his best result in an ATP Masters Series event, knocking out Andy Roddick on his way to the semifinals at Montreal. He had a record of 2–2 in the four Davis Cup matches he played that year. He won both his matches against the Swedish opponents Thomas Johansson and Joachim Johansson, but lost to Russia's Nikolay Davydenko and Igor Andreev in the quarterfinal tie.

2006 saw him equal his best result at a Grand Slam tournament by reaching the fourth round of the Australian Open. In May a career high ranking of no. 32 was attained. In the third round of the French Open, he lost to eventual champion Rafael Nadal in a grueling encounter which lasted 4 hours and 53 minutes, but only saw 42 games played (Nadal won the match 5–7, 6–4, 6–4, 6–4, with the first set lasting 93 minutes and each of the following sets longer than an hour. The score was only 1–1 in the second set after just over 2 hours of play). Many tennis players and commentators, including two time French Open runner up Àlex Corretja, hailed it as a classic.

2007 started poorly for Mathieu when he injured himself at the Australian Open during a 1st round encounter against Spaniard Fernando Verdasco and was forced to retire from the match. This was unfortunate as Mathieu was up 2 sets and 3–0 in the 3rd set tiebreak at the time. After returning from his injury, he reached the 4th round in Miami, beating then world number 5 Fernando González of Chile along the way, before bowing out to Andy Murray in 3 sets. On 29 April 2007, Mathieu won his 3rd career title, the Grand Prix Hassan II in Casablanca defeating Álbert Montañés 6–1, 6–1. At Wimbledon, he reached round 4 for the first time, defeating Radek Štěpánek, No. 17 seed (15th ranked) David Ferrer, and 15th seed (12th ranked) Ivan Ljubičić. He attained a career high ranking of 28 in singles after this result, entering the world's top 30 for the first time. The week after Wimbledon, he beat Italian Andreas Seppi 6–7, 6–3, 7–5 in a difficult final to claim his fourth ATP Tour title in Gstaad, Switzerland. He rose to No. 23 in the rankings, making his top 25 breakthrough. At the Montreal Masters, he produced one of the comebacks of the season to beat 15th seed Guillermo Cañas. Trailing 4–6, 0–4, he managed to up his level of play to win 13 of the next 14 games and record a win by the score of 4–6, 7–5, 6–0. He followed that up with a win over Mario Ančić in round 2. In round 3, he ran into Rafael Nadal, and actually won the first set 6–3 before losing the next two 6–3, 6–2. He then made the semi finals of New Haven losing to world number 6 James Blake in a 3rd set tiebreak. This result projected him in the world's top 20 for the 1st time, at the 20th rank.

At the 2012 French Open, Mathieu won his first round match from two sets down before defeating John Isner in five sets, 18–16 in the decider in what proved to be the second longest match in French Open history and fourth longest in Grand Slam history. He lost in the third round to the Spaniard Marcel Granollers. Mathieu defeated Igor Andreev of Russia in the Swiss Open [6–3, 7–6(4)].

At the 2015 Generali Open Kitzbühel, Mathieu reached the final as a qualifier, after wins over Kenny de Schepper, Martin Kližan, Federico Delbonis and Nicolás Almagro. He lost in the final to Philipp Kohlschreiber 2–6, 6–2, 6–2.

Mathieu played the last singles and doubles match of his career in an ATP World Tour Masters 1000 tournament – the 2017 Rolex Paris Masters. Rank world no. 265 in the ATP singles rankings coming into the tournament, he lost in the second and final singles qualifying round to Vasek Pospisil; he and his partner Benoît Paire lost in the doubles main draw first round to the American pair of Nicholas Monroe and Jack Sock.

Paul Henri Mathieu's father (Patrick) and mother (Yveline) are a dentist and a housewife respectively. Paul Henri has a sister named Aude and a brother named Pierre Yves. A relatively popular, well liked player despite his inconsistent career results, Mathieu is nicknamed "Paulo" and often affectionately known by his initials, PHM. His favourite surfaces are clay and hard, and he admired Boris Becker while growing up. His brother Pierre Yves is now a tennis coach in Strasbourg.