Густаво Куэртен: Путь бразильской теннисной легенды

Brazilian tennis player

Gustavo "Guga" Kuerten (ɡusˈtavu ˈkiʁtẽ; born 10 September 1976) is a Brazilian former world No. 1 tennis player. He won the French Open singles title three times (1997, 2000, 2001), and was the Tennis Masters Cup champion in 2000. During his career he won 20 singles and eight doubles titles. Kuerten suffered from injuries that limited his attendances at tournaments in 2002 and from 2004 and 2008. After two hip surgeries and a few attempted comebacks, he retired from top level tennis in May 2008. He was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 2012. In 2016, Kuerten was asked to be a torch bearer for the Rio Olympics.

He established himself as the leading clay court player of his generation in 1999, and he became one of three South Americans to complete the year in the top 10 in all the history of the ATP rankings. In April he won the Monte Carlo Masters beating the Chilean Marcelo Ríos. In May he won the Rome Masters, beating Patrick Rafter in the final. In June he reached the quarterfinals at the French Open, losing to unseeded eventual runner up Andriy Medvedev. At Wimbledon, he became the first Brazilian to reach the quarterfinals since Thomaz Koch in 1968. He was defeated by Andre Agassi in the quarterfinals, but had lost just one set until that stage. In July, he defeated Sébastien Grosjean 9–7 in the fifth set of the 1999 Davis Cup quarterfinal between Brazil and France. That match lasted 4 hours and 43 minutes. He also became the first Brazilian to qualify for the ATP Tennis Masters Cup, today known as the Nitto ATP Finals, winning a match but failing to get past round robin.

After another solid clay court swing, Kuerten won his second French Open title by defeating Magnus Norman (who had beaten him a few weeks earlier in the final of the Rome Masters) on his 11th match point. Kuerten became the first South American to finish the year as World No. 1 in the history of the ATP rankings (since 1973). He also became the first South American to finish in Top 5 in consecutive years since Guillermo Vilas of Argentina in 1977–78. He also won the biggest hardcourt title of his career in August at the Cincinnati Masters, where he defeated Patrick Rafter in the final. At the US Open he was seeded first but lost in the quarterfinals in straight sets to seventh seeded Yevgeni Kafelnikov. Injuries started to plague Kuerten as he lost 8 of the next 9 matches to conclude the year. Despite being the favorite to finish as world No. 1 for the second consecutive year, his poor season ending showing saw Lleyton Hewitt overtake him. He led the ATP in prize money for the second straight year, with US$4,091,004.

At the Australian Open Kuerten reached the third round for the first, and only, time in his career by defeating Ivan Ljubičić in the second round in four sets but subsequently lost to Paradorn Schrichapan. In an injury ridden year, Kuerten won one ATP Tour title, which he did at home, by winning the Brasil Open for the second time. In that year, the tournament had been moved from September to February, and the surface had been changed from hard to clay, as a result of a compromise with the Buenos Aires Open, in Argentina, and the Viña del Mar Open, in Chile, to tighten up a clear South American tournament circuit. With his victory, Kuerten became the only player to win the title on both surfaces, having previously won it in 2002. Kuerten was responsible for the only defeat of Roger Federer in a Grand Slam event in 2004. In Kuerten's only previous encounter against Federer on clay, in the Hamburg Masters 2002, Federer defeated Kuerten 6–0, 1–6, 6–2. When they met again in the third round at the French Open in 2004, it was Federer who was in dominant form, the world no. 1, and expected to win against the injury ridden Kuerten. Instead, it was Kuerten who overpowered and dominated Federer, beating him in straight sets. This would remain the last time that Federer was defeated in any Grand Slam prior to the quarterfinals stage until his round 2 loss against Serhiy Stakhovsky at Wimbledon in 2013. On 1 September Kuerten announced that he would be withdrawing from the ATP Tour for an indefinite period of time, in order to undergo detailed exams of his operated hip, which had reportedly started to bother him again. Kuerten chose to devise his schedule around tournaments that had sentimental value to him, such as the French Open, the Brasil Open, and the Miami Masters. After two first round defeats in singles (Costa do Sauípe, l. to Berlocq and Miami, l. to Grosjean), Kuerten won his first ATP Masters Series level match in a long time, partnering Nicolás Lapentti, in Miami, against Feliciano López and Fernando Verdasco.

On 25 May 2008, Gustavo Kuerten played his last professional singles match in front of 15,000 spectators at Roland Garros. He arrived on court wearing his 'lucky' uniform, the same blue & yellow one that he wore in 1997 when he won his first French Open tournament. Despite saving a match point against his opponent Paul Henri Mathieu, he finally lost in three sets (6–3, 6–4, 6–2)—his result in the final of French Open in 1997. He was honored after the game by the tournament organizers and by all the fans present for what he has achieved throughout his career.

Kuerten embraced the baseline style of play, with heavy topspin on his ground strokes and a solid serve that enabled him to wear down his opponents from the back of the court. Kuerten, however, emphasized offensive baseline play as opposed to the traditional defensive baseline play favoured by classic clay court specialists, and unlike them, his first serve was his biggest weapon. He played right handed with a single handed backhand using a western grip. The arcing backhand played with topspin was his trademark shot.

During his career, Kuerten used Head racquets with Luxilon polyester strings. He wore Diadora clothes, changing them on a short period for Olympikus and Head. In 2012, after his retirement, he signed a sponsor deal with French brands Lacoste (for clothes) and Peugeot (for TV commercials). Kuerten also has his own clothes and glasses brand, named "Guga Kuerten".

Kuerten was born in Florianópolis in southern Brazil. He began playing tennis when he was six, an early start to a life and career marked by family tragedy. His father, Aldo, a former amateur tennis player, died of a heart attack in 1985 while umpiring a junior tennis match in Curitiba, when Kuerten was eight years old. Since retirement he has settled down in his place of birth, the Brazilian island of Florianópolis, where he is an active member in the lakeside district of Lagoa da Conceição. He still enjoys teaching and playing tennis with the local enthusiasts. In his hometown, he is known as the "Cachorro Grande" ("Big Dog"). He is an avid surfer. Kuerten was accepted to a drama course at CEART, the Center of Arts of Santa Catarina State University (UDESC) in Florianópolis. He began his studies there on 16 February 2009. In November 2010, on his brother Guilherme's birthday, he married Mariana Soncini and the couple have a daughter and a son. In October 2016 he was in court for tax evasion, related to income earned from copyright and image rights between 1995 and 2002, and in November was ordered to pay 7 million R$ (appr. US$2 million). His favourite football team is Brazilian Avaí Futebol Clube. He is a distant cousin to model and TV presenter, Renata Kuerten.

In 1998, 2002 and 2004 Kuerten received the Prix Orange Roland Garros Award for sportsmanship from the association of tennis journalists. In his homeland Brazil he was awarded the Prêmio Brasil Olímpico in 1999 and was named Athlete of the Year in 1999 and 2000. In 2005, Tennis Magazine put him in 37th place in its list of "The 40 Greatest Players of the Tennis Era". In 2010, Kuerten was presented with the ITF's highest accolade, the Philippe Chatrier Award, for his contributions to tennis. That same year he won the Mercosur Konex Award from Argentina as the best tennis player of South America in that decade. Kuerten won the International Club's prestigious Jean Borotra Sportsmanship Award in 2011. On 16 February 2016, the central court of Rio Open was named after him, officially Guga Kuerten court. On 5 August 2016, he relayed the Olympic Torch into Maracanã Stadium during the Opening Ceremonies for 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, relaying off to Hortencia Marcari.