Brian Baker (tennis)

Brian Baker

Baker during his second round match at the 2012 French Open.
Country	United States
Residence	Nashville, Tennessee
Born	(1985-04-30) April 30, 1985 Nashville, Tennessee
Height	6 ft 3 in (1.91 m)
Turned pro	2003
Plays	Right-handed (two-handed backhand)
Prize money	$645,485
Singles
Career record	17–28
Career titles	0 2 Challengers, 4 Futures
Highest ranking	No. 52 (October 29, 2012)
Current ranking	No. 185 (August 12, 2013)
Grand Slam Singles results
Australian Open	2R (2013)
French Open	2R (2012)
Wimbledon	4R (2012)
US Open	2R (2005, 2012)
Doubles
Career record	4–9
Career titles	0
Highest ranking	No. 113 (October 25, 2004)
Grand Slam Doubles results
US Open	2R (2004, 2012)
Last updated on: October 9, 2012.

Brian Baker (born April 30, 1985) is a professional American tennis player from Nashville, Tennessee.

Junior career

As a junior player, Baker won the 2002 Orange Bowl and reached the boys final of the 2003 French Open, where he lost to Stanislas Wawrinka.^[1] Baker reached No. 2 in singles in the junior world rankings (and No. 5 in doubles) and beat Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and Marcos Baghdatis to reach the French Open final.^[1]

Pro career

Early career

Baker's biggest win of his fledgling career occurred in August 2005, when he scored an upset victory over ninth-seeded Gastón Gaudio in the 2005 US Open.^[2] The victory was Baker's first Grand Slam win.^[2] Baker originally played on the tour for only a short time, from 2002 through to 2005, as well as participating in three autumn Challenger events in 2007.^[3] He won two Challenger events during this time and reached a career-best singles ranking of World No. 172 on November 15, 2004. He was coached by Ricardo Acuña.

In 2007, he was sidelined for nearly six years after five surgeries—three on his hip, one on his elbow, and one sports hernia—and did not play on the tour again until 2011.^[4][5] Baker stated that his love for the game never waned, and he continued to play tennis with his father and uncle in the Middle Tennessee Tennis League.^[6]

Return to professional tennis

While coaching tennis at Belmont University, Baker began to feel his body gradually improving and decided to try again to make it as a professional tennis player in the summer of 2011.^[7][8] He subsequently entered an ITF Futures tournament in Pittsburgh in July 2011 as an unranked qualifier, qualified, and won the tournament, all without dropping a set.^[9] In September, he entered the Canadian Futures 7 and reached the semifinals, again without dropping a set. He lost in a walkover to Jesse Levine.^[10] Two months later, in November 2011, Baker entered the 2011 Knoxville Challenger, and qualified for the tournament after straight-set victories over Jordan Cox, Tim Smyczek and Michael McClune. He went on to win his next four matches,^[11] before losing to Jesse Levine in the final.^[9]

2012

Baker won three Futures and Challenger tournaments early in 2012 before returning to the ATP Tour: USA F3 and F8, and Sarasota.

After winning the Savannah Challenger, beating Augustin Gensse in the final, in April 2012, he was awarded the USTA's discretionary wild card for the 2012 French Open.^[4] In response to this, Baker's good friend Amer Delić noted an inconvenient truth about the situation by tweeting, "Brian Baker... Same guy that USTA refused to give a WC for qualies of the clay court future last summer..."^[12] The statement was in reference to the USA F17 tournament that Baker went on to win.

Shortly before the French Open, he qualified for the 2012 Open de Nice Côte d'Azur in May, beating Ilija Bozoljac, David Guez, and Alejandro González in the qualification rounds, all in straight sets.^[9] Baker then faced Sergey Stakhovsky in the first round, losing the first set before recovering to win the match. A straight sets victory, 6–3, 7–6, against Gaël Monfils meant that Baker progressed to the Quarter Final of the tournament.^[13] Hard-fought wins over Mikhail Kukushkin and Nikolay Davydenko took Baker to his first-ever ATP final on a 15-game winning streak going into the match.^[14] He ultimately lost to Nicolás Almagro, the repeat champion, in the final. After his surprising performance, he reached his highest singles ranking at No. 141.^[15]

Just two days after the final in Nice, Baker headed to Paris for the French Open. He beat Xavier Malisse in straight-set in the first round, lining up a match against Gilles Simon in the second round. He lost against Simon in five sets. Despite the defeat, Baker's appearance in the tournament was described as "one of the most remarkable comebacks of modern times."^[15]

Two weeks after the French Open, Baker qualified for the 2012 Wimbledon Championships after beating Radu Albot, Denis Gremelmayr, and Maxime Teixeira in the qualification rounds. He secured a straight-set victory over Rui Machado in his first-round match, 7–6, 6–4, 6–0, before dismissing Jarkko Nieminen, 6–0, 6–2, 6–4, to progress to the third round.^[16][17] In his third-round match, he beat Frenchman Benoît Paire in four sets, 6–4, 4–6, 6–1, 6–3.^[4] Baker bowed out of the competition in the fourth round, losing in straight sets to Philipp Kohlschreiber.^[18] On his performance at Wimbledon, Baker stated - "It's been an unbelievable run. I don't know if I put an expectation like I need to get to this round or not. But I don't know if starting first round qualifiers I would have thought I would have got to the fourth round of Wimbledon".^[18]

After starting the North American hard-court season with a string of four first-round losses to lower-ranked players, Baker pulled off another remarkable upset, gaining revenge by beating World No. 17 (and recent Wimbledon quarterfinalist) Philipp Kohlschreiber in the first round of the Cincinnati Masters. He subsequently lost 4–6, 3–6 to Australian Bernard Tomic in the second round. At the 2012 US Open, he matched his best US Open and Grand Slam performance from before his injuries, reaching the second round. He defeated Jan Hájek and fell to eighth seed Janko Tipsarević.

During the indoor hard-court season, Baker qualified (as the top qualifying seed) for the ATP 500 tournament Beijing, losing in the first round to Kevin Anderson 7–5, 3–6, 1–6. He then went on to qualify for the Shanghai Masters, losing to 11th seed Richard Gasquet in the opening round. After these consecutive first-round losses, Baker pulled off a remarkable comeback against Radek Štěpánek in Basel, turning the tables from a double break down in the second set to win 2–6, 7–6, 6–3. Stepanek was up *3–0 in the second, and was broken for a second time at *4–3 from 40–0 up (also having a 3–0 lead in the tiebreak). Baker lost in the second round to eventual champion Juan Martín del Potro 5–7, 1–6.

He ended 2012 ranked World No. 61, after reaching a career-high ranking of World No. 52 in October.

2013

In the Heineken Open in Auckland, Baker upset No. 5 seed (and recent Paris Masters finalist) Jerzy Janowicz in the first round. He converted 2 out of 17 break points and finally won on his 8th match point.^[19]

In the second round of the Australian Open, Baker led No. 20 seed Sam Querrey 7–6(2), 1–1 before a knee injury forced him to retire. This was later diagnosed as a torn meniscus, which is set to put Baker off the tour for around 4 months.^[20]

Baker made his return in Aptos losing to Guido Pella. He then lost to Grigor Dimitrov in the second of the Cincinnati Masters. At the U.S Open he was defeated by Lleyton Hewitt in the first round.

He end 2013 rank World No. 360.

2014

Baker withdraw the 2014 Australian Open, citing a knee injury. ^[21]

Personal life

Baker was as an assistant coach for the Belmont University men's tennis program for 4 years.^[22] He studied toward business and finance degrees at the University.^[23]

ATP career finals

Singles: 1 (0–1)

Outcome	No.	Date	Tournament	Surface	Opponent	Score
Runner-up	1.	02012-05-26May 26, 2012	Open de Nice Côte d'Azur, Nice, France	Clay	Nicolás Almagro	3–6, 2–6

Challenger and Futures finals

Singles 10 (6–4)

Outcome	No.	Date	Tournament	Surface	Opponent	Score
Runner-up	1.	April 7, 2003	USA F8 (Little Rock, Arkansas)	Hard	Ignacio Hirigoyen	6–3, 5–7, 3–6
Winner	2.	January 12, 2004	USA F1 (Tampa, Florida)	Hard	Todd Widom	6–3, 6–4
Runner-up	3.	May 17, 2004	USA F12 (Tampa, Florida)	Hard	KJ Hippensteel	6–1, 6–7(5–7), 2–6
Winner	4.	August 2, 2004	Denver Challenger (Denver, Colorado)	Hard	KJ Hippensteel	7–6(7–5), 6–4
Runner-up	5.	February 5, 2005	Tunica Resorts Challenger (Tunica Resorts, Mississippi)	Clay	James Blake	2–6, 3–6
Winner	6.	July 4, 2011	USA F17 (Pennsylvania)	Clay	Bjorn Fratangelo	7–5, 6–3
Runner-up	7.	November 7, 2011	Knoxville Challenger (Knoxville, Tennessee)	Hard	Jesse Levine	2–6, 3–6
Winner	8.	January 23, 2012	USA F3 (Florida)	Clay	Jason Kubler	7–5, 6–3
Winner	9.	March 19, 2012	USA F8 (United States)	Hard	Greg Ouellette	6–1, 6–2
Winner	10.	April 23, 2012	Savannah Challenger (Savannah, Georgia)	Clay	Augustin Gensse	6–4, 6–3

Singles performance timeline

Tournament	2001	2002	2003	2004	2005	2006	2007	2008	2009	2010	2011	2012	2013	2014	W–L
Grand Slam Tournament
Australian Open	A	A	A	A	Q1	A	A	A	A	A	A	A	2R	A	1–1
French Open	A	A	A	A	Q1	A	A	A	A	A	A	2R	A		1–1
Wimbledon	A	A	A	A	Q1	A	A	A	A	A	A	4R	A		3–1
US Open	Q1	Q1	1R	1R	2R	A	A	A	A	A	A	2R	1R		2–5
Win–Loss	0–0	0–1	0–1	0–1	1–1	0–0	0–0	0–0	0–0	0–0	0–0	5–3	1–2		7–8
Career statistics
Titles–Finals	0–0	0–0	0–0	0–0	0–0	0–0	0–0	0–0	0–0	0–0	0–0	0–1	0–0		0–1
Year End Ranking	N/A	612	422	178	205	N/A	842	N/A	N/A	N/A	456	61	360

Doubles performance timeline

Key

Won tournament; or reached Final; Semifinal; Quarter-final; Round 4, 3, 2, 1; competed at a Round Robin stage; lost in Qualification Round; absent from tournament event; played in a Davis Cup Zonal Group (with its number indication) or Play-off; won a bronze, silver (F or S) or gold medal at the Olympics; a downgraded Masters Series/1000 tournament (Not a Masters Series); or a tournament that was Not Held in a given year.

To avoid confusion and double counting, these charts are updated either at the conclusion of a tournament, or when the player's participation in the tournament has ended.

Current till US Open 2013.

References

External links

• Brian Baker on Twitter
• Brian Baker's ATP profile page
• Brian Baker's Athletic DNA Profile
• Belmont Men's Tennis Profile
• NY Times Article detailing Brian Baker's career

v t e Association of Tennis Professionals: Top ten American male singles tennis players as of 27 January 2014 1. John Isner (13 ) 2. Sam Querrey (49 2) 3. Donald Young (79 12) 4. Bradley Klahn (82 11) 5. Jack Sock (89 6) 6. Michael Russell (97 7) 7. Tim Smyczek (100 10) 8. Denis Kudla (109 4) 9. Ryan Harrison (121 11) 10.Rhyne Williams (124 6)