Kristian Pless

Danish tennis player

Kristian Peter Pless (born 9 February 1981) is a former professional male tennis player from Denmark.

Pless had an excellent junior career, winning the 1999 Australian Open Boys' Singles (defeated Mikhail Youzhny), and reaching the Boys' final at both Wimbledon (lost to Jürgen Melzer), and the US Open (lost to Jarkko Nieminen) the same year. He finished 1999 as the No. 1 ranked junior player in the world.

He turned professional in 1999, and on 28 January 2002, Kristian Pless reached his career high ATP singles ranking of World No. 65. He has won tournaments at the Futures and Challenger levels, and has reached three semifinals on the ATP Tour. He suffered a serious shoulder injury in 2003, which after multiple surgery kept him out of competition for almost a year. After returning from injury in 2004, he had dropped in the rankings to World No. 846 on 24 May. Subsequently, he has gradually climbed the rankings, and after successful performances at the Challenger level in autumn 2006, he entered the Top 100 again. In January 2007, he continued his good performances as he defeated World No. 8 David Nalbandian in three sets in the first round of Chennai Open. This was Pless' first win against a Top 10 ranked player. In 2007 he also managed to take a set from tennis legend Roger Federer at their meeting in Dubai, but eventually Federer won the tie 7–6(2), 3–6, 6–3. It was first set Federer had lost that year after he had won the Australian Open without losing a single set. In 2008 he reached two Challenger finals (in Izmir, Turkey and Rimouski, Canada), but ended the year outside of Top 100. 2009 was his last year on tour.