Thomaz Bellucci

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Thomaz Bellucci

Country  Brazil
Residence São Paulo, Brazil
Born (1987-12-30) 30 December 1987
São Paulo, Brazil
Height 1.88 m (6 ft 2 in)
Turned pro 2005
Plays Left-handed (two-handed backhand)
Prize money $2,833,315
Singles
Career record 119-124
Career titles 3
Highest ranking No. 21 (26 July 2010)
Current ranking No. 122 (13 January 2014)
Grand Slam Singles results
Australian Open 2R (2010, 2011, 2012, 2014)
French Open 4R (2010)
Wimbledon 3R (2010)
US Open 2R (2008, 2009, 2010)
Doubles
Career record 33–50
Career titles 1
Highest ranking No. 70 (15 July 2013)
Grand Slam Doubles results
Australian Open QF (2013)
Wimbledon 1R (2008, 2012)
US Open 2R (2012)
Mixed Doubles
Grand Slam Mixed Doubles results
French Open SF (2011)
Last updated on: 15 July 2013.

Thomaz Cocchiarali Bellucci (born 30 December 1987 in São Paulo), a professional top-50 tennis player, is the top ranked Brazilian tennis player and the only one in the top-100. He achieved a career-high singles ranking of World No. 21 in July 2010.

Bellucci used a string of ATP Challenger Tour victories early in 2008 to break into the top 100 rankings of the ATP World Tour as a 20-year-old. He has won 3 tour titles (the 2009 and 2012 Swiss Open, and the 2010 Movistar Open) and reached the semi-finals of the 2011 Madrid Masters.

Playing style

Thomaz's playing style is using the heavy topspin of his big forehand to control points. He lacks outright power to produce a lot of aces, but he has excellent spin on his serve, allowing him to force his opponents off of the court which leads to him taking the offensive at the beginning of the point. His two-handed backhand is much more compact than his forehand, and is flatter, which allows him to take balls earlier on his backhand wing and drive the ball for winners. His preferred court is clay, but shows the adaptive potential to get much better at faster courts as well.

Tennis career

Juniors

Bellucci reached as high as No. 15 in the junior combined world rankings, two weeks after his 17th birthday, in January 2005.[1]

2007

Bellucci began 2007 ranked No. 582, but began a rapid ascent in June to finish the year at No. 202.

2008

The 20-year-old Bellucci continued his rapid rise early in 2008. The first week of the year, ranked No. 202, he made it to the quarterfinals of a Challenger in São Paulo.

Bellucci had little success in his next few tournaments, but in February he got back on track, beating No. 145 Pablo Andújar while qualifying into an ATP stop in Buenos Aires and then recording his first-ever ATP match win, over No. 83 Werner Eschauer, before bowing out in the next round to No. 25 Juan Ignacio Chela. The following week, he beat No. 130 Rubén Ramírez Hidalgo and No. 140 Eduardo Schwank en route to his first-ever Challenger title, in Santiago, Chile, to improve his ranking to No. 145. The next week, he beat No. 162 Dick Norman before losing in a Challenger second round match.

In April, Bellucci began an amazing string of Challenger match wins in singles play. First he won a minor Challenger in Florianópolis, Brazil, and made the final in doubles. Two weeks later, he ran his singles streak to 10 matches while winning a major Challenger in Tunis, beating No. 155 Andreas Beck, No. 363 Martin Verkerk, No. 136 Paul Capdeville, No. 113 Nicolás Massú, and No. 175 Dušan Vemić, and also won the doubles title. Those wins got him into the top 100 for the first time at No. 100. The following week, at a minor Challenger in Rabat, Morocco, he ran his streak to 15 matches while beating No. 136 Capdeville again, No. 96 Guillermo García-López, and No. 119 Martín Vassallo Argüello to win the title and get his ranking to No. 81. His streak ended at 17 matches the next week, after beating No. 128 Rik de Voest to reach the quarterfinals of a challenger in Bordeaux, France, when he finally lost to No. 111 Igor Kunitsyn, improving Bellucci's ranking to No. 75.

In late May, he qualified into his first French Open, lost to 3-time defending champion and ATP No. 2 Rafael Nadal in the first round. At Wimbledon, he achieved his first win in a Grand Slam event, defeating Igor Kunitsyn in four sets.

2009

Bellucci began the year reaching the Brasil Open final for the first time. He upset the former world No. 1, 2003 French Open champion, and 2007 Brasil Open titlist Juan Carlos Ferrero in the Quarterfinals, but eventually lost in 3 sets to second-seeded Tommy Robredo. It was his first ATP Tour final, after a string of Challengers.

In August, he would win his first title at the Swiss Open in Gstaad after reaching the main draw through qualification and going on to beat local hope and former world No. 9 Stanislas Wawrinka, former world No. 4 Nicolas Kiefer, two-time Swiss Open runner-up Igor Andreev, and first-time finalist Andreas Beck in straight sets.[2] Ranked No. 119 in the world at the time of his victory in Switzerland, Bellucci jumped 53 spots in the ATP World Tour rankings to No. 66 as a result.

In October, Bellucci reached his first hard-court ATP World Tour semifinal. He reached the last 4 at the Stockholm Open, losing to Olivier Rochus in three sets.

He then followed his good form to win his second challenger title of the year, at the 2009 Copa Petrobras São Paulo in Brazil. He beat Nicolás Lapentti of Ecuador to win the sixth challenger of his career, and the second on his native soil. This result bumped Bellucci up to No. 37 in the world, the first time that Thomaz was ranked inside the Top 40 in the world in singles.

2010

Thomaz entered the first tournament of the season, the Brisbane International ATP tournament worth 250 points. He made the quarter-finals after being narrowly edged out by Czech Tomáš Berdych, where he lost two tiebreaks. At the Heineken Open, at Auckland, he lost to Philipp Kohlschreiber in the second round. He then lost early to Andy Roddick at the 2010 Australian Open.

Going to the Latin America clay tournaments, on 2010 Movistar Open, at Chile, Bellucci defeated defending champion Fernando González in the semifinals and Juan Mónaco in the final match to capture his second tour title.[3] In the 2010 Brasil Open He lost to comaptriot Ricardo Mello in the Quarterfinals. He then played in 2010 Abierto Mexicano Telcel losing in the second round to eventual champion David Ferrer. In the 2010 BNP Paribas Open after receiving a bye in the first round and a walkover in the second round he lost to Guillermo García-López in three sets. In the 2010 Sony Ericsson Open he upset James Blake and Olivier Rochus but lost hard fought three set match to Nicolás Almagro. Bellucc then lost in the first round at Monte Carlo. At the ATP 500 Barcelona he reached the Quarterfinals, losing to David Ferrer, after defeating Jarkko Nieminen, Victor Hănescu and Guillermo García-López. At the Rome Masters 1000 he defeated Leonardo Mayer, John Isner, but lost to world no. 2, Novak Djokovic in the third round.

He continued in good form at the 2010 French Open. Thomaz reached the fourth round, losing to world no. 2 and former French Open champion Rafael Nadal in three sets.[4] En route to the 4th round he defeated 14th seed Ivan Ljubičić, qualifier Pablo Andújar and Michaël Llodra. Bellucci suffered a third round loss in the third round in Wimbledon to Robin Söderling,[5] and lost a marathon quarterfinal at ATP 500 event in Hamburg to Seppi.[6]

At the US Open, Thomaz started promisingly, beating American Tim Smyczek in straight sets, however, after a grueling 3h51m battle with South African Kevin Anderson, he succumbed in a fifth set tiebreaker.

2011

After reaching the quarterfinals in Auckland to start off the year, and losing a heartbreaking five set match to Jan Hernych in the second round at the 2011 Australian Open, Bellucci went through a relatively poor run of form. He failed to defend his title at Santiago losing in the quarterfinals to Fognini. He then reached the quarterfinals at his hometown 2011 Brasil Open but played poorly and lost to eventual finalist Juan Ignacio Chela.

At the 2011 Abierto Mexicano Telcel tournament Bellucci beat a top ten player for the first time in his career, a three set victory overFernando Verdasco in the first round. However in the semifinal match, he lost to eventual finalist Nicolás Almagro. He received a first round bye at the 2011 BNP Paribas Open but was dumped quickly by Tomáš Berdych in the third round. Bellucci then had three straight losses at the 2011 Sony Ericsson Open, the 2011 Monte-Carlo Rolex Masters, and at the 2011 Barcelona Open Banco Sabadell. At the 2011 Estoril Open he lost in the quarterfinals to Pablo Cuevas.

Bellucci started playing better at the Madrid Open, managing to claim solid wins over Pablo Andújar and Florian Mayer, who retired due to fatigue. In the third round he defeated World Number 4 Andy Murray to claim his first top 5 win. The following day in the quarterfinals, he backed up his win by dismissing World Number 7 Tomáš Berdych in two sets (for the first time in three meetings) to reach the semifinals of an ATP World Tour Masters 1000 tournament for the first time in his career. Bellucci ended up losing to eventual champion Novak Djokovic, who was yet to be defeated this season. The Brazilian controlled the match at the beginning, taking the first set and going up a break for a 3–1 lead in the second set, but the Serbian fought back and eventually won in three sets. Bellucci's semifinal effort in Madrid marked eight years since a Brazilian reached a semifinal stage in a Masters Series event, the last being former World No.1 Gustavo Kuerten who appeared in the 2003 Indian Wells final (losing to Lleyton Hewitt).

Bellucci lost to local qualifier Paolo Lorenzi in the first round of the Rome Masters in straight sets. At the French Open, Bellucci (seeded 23rd) defeated Andrey Golubev and Andreas Seppi but lost in the third round to 13th seed Richard Gasquet. Bellucci made more than 40 unforced errors in this three-hour match. Bellucci's next tournament was the Aegon Championship, opening his grass court season. He was defeated in the third round by Marin Čilić.

At Wimbledon, he lost in the first round in straight sets to Rainer Schüttler. He made it to the quarterfinals of the Farmers Classic in Los Angeles, but was defeated by Alex Bogomolov. At the US Open, he was defeated in the first round by Israeli Dudi Sela despite winning the first two sets.

He spent six tournaments without winning a single match, from the Cincinnati Masters to the Paris Masters.

2012

Thomaz Bellucci at the 2012 Open de Nice Côte d'Azur

Bellucci started 2012 reaching three second rounds in a row, with the Australian Open included, where he lost to Gaël Monfils.

In the Brasil Open, he reached the semifinals losing to Filippo Volandri. He then went to Indian Wells, where he managed to beat seed 20 Jürgen Melzer and walked over Russian Nikolay Davydenko to equalize his second best ever Masters 1000 campaign, reaching the fourth and losing to Roger Federer in three sets.

After a few months without many significant results, including an elimination to Nadal in Wimbledon, he reached the semifinals at the Stuttgart Open losing to eventual champion and World Number 8 Janko Tipsarević in three sets. He then won his third career title at the Gstaad Open (his second trophy of the tournament) with a three set win over the same Janko Tipsarević.[7] At the Kremlin Cup Bellucci reached his first final in a hard-court tournament, losing to Andreas Seppi. In the Swiss Open he lost in three sets to World Number 1 Roger Federer in the second round of the tournament. Next came a first round at the BNP Paribas Open, though by November his ranking position was 33.

2013

After an early first-round loss to Blaž Kavčič at the 2013 Australian Open, Bellucci got to the quarterfinals in doubles, with parter Benoît Paire, losing to Marcel Granollers and Marc López. In Jacksonville, playing for Brazil in Davis Cup competition, he upset John Isner in a five-set match, but Brazil lost the tie to the US 3–2. He won in the 1R against fellow countryman Guilherme Clezar but fell again to Volandri in the 2R at Brasil Open. After losing to Volandri the Brazilian had to hear boos from his own country crowd.[8] After losing in the 1R in the next four tournaments (Buenos Aires, Acapulco, Indian Wells and Dallas) Bellucci finally came up with two wins in a row in Miami, over Daniel Brands and Jerzy Janowicz, then losing in the third round to Seppi. He started the European clay court season by losing again in the first round of Monte Carlo to Philipp Kohlschreiber and finally reached his first quarter-final of the year in Barcelona, by defeating Pablo Carreno Busta and Dmitry Tursunov; he withdrew from the tournament with an abdominal strain, which made him lose the rest of the European clay court season and the grass season, including Roland Garros and Wimbledon.

Coming back in Stuttgart, he lost in the 2R to Victor Hanescu. After that, he lost in the 1R for five times in a row (Hamburg, Gstaad, Kitzbühel, Montreal and Cincinnati) and dropped out of the top100 for the first time in five years. In October/November he disputed two challengers: the first he won the title in Montevideo against Diego Sebastián Schwartzman and in the second, in Bogotá, he felt pain in the abdomen in the middle of the championship match, retiring to the victory of Víctor Estrella and ended the year as the number 125 of the world.

ATP career finals

Singles: 5 (3–2)

Legend
Grand Slam (0–0)
ATP World Tour Finals (0–0)
ATP World Tour Masters 1000 (0–0)
ATP World Tour 500 series (0–0)
ATP World Tour 250 series (3–2)
Titles by Surface
Hard (0–1)
Clay (3–1)
Grass (0–0)
Carpet (0–0)
Titles by Surface
Outdoors (3–1)
Indoors (0–1)
Outcome No. Date Tournament Surface Opponent Score
Runner-up 1. 14 February 2009 Brasil Open, Costa do Sauípe, Brazil Clay Spain Tommy Robredo 3–6, 6–3, 4–6
Winner 1. 2 August 2009 Swiss Open, Gstaad, Switzerland Clay Germany Andreas Beck 6–4, 7–6(7–2)
Winner 2. 7 February 2010 Movistar Open, Santiago, Chile Clay Argentina Juan Mónaco 6–2, 0–6, 6–4
Winner 3. 22 July 2012 Swiss Open, Gstaad, Switzerland (2) Clay Serbia Janko Tipsarević 6–7(6–8), 6–4, 6–2
Runner-up 2. 21 October 2012 Kremlin Cup, Moscow, Russia Hard (i) Italy Andreas Seppi 6–3, 6–7(3–7), 3–6

Doubles: 1 (1–0)

Legend (pre/post 2009)
Grand Slam Tournaments (0/0)
ATP World Tour Finals (0/0)
ATP World Tour Masters 1000 (0/0)
ATP World Tour 500 Series (0/0)
ATP World Tour 250 Series (1/0)
Outcome No. Date Tournament Surface Partnering Opponents in the final Score in the final
Winner 1. 14 July 2013 MercedesCup, Stuttgart, Germany Clay Argentina Facundo Bagnis Poland Tomasz Bednarek
Poland Mateusz Kowalczyk		 2–6, 6–4, [11–9]

Challenger and Futures finals

Singles: 12 (8–4)

Legend
ATP Challenger Tour (8–4)
Outcome No. Date Tournament Surface Opponent Score
Runner-up 1. 15 July 2007 Bogotá, Colombia Clay Ecuador Carlos Salamanca 6–4, 3–6, 2–6
Runner-up 2. 22 July 2007 Cuenca, Ecuador Clay Argentina Leonardo Mayer 3–6, 2–6
Winner 3. 2 March 2008 Santiago, Chile Clay Argentina Eduardo Schwank 6–4, 7–6(7–3)
Winner 4. 14 April 2008 Florianapolis, Brazil Clay Brazil Franco Ferreiro 4–6, 6–4, 6–2
Winner 5. 4 May 2008 Tunis, Tunisia Clay Serbia Dušan Vemić 6–2, 6–4
Winner 6. 11 May 2008 Rabat, Morocco Clay Argentina Martín Vassallo Argüello 6–2, 6–2
Winner 7. 19 July 2009 Rimini, Italy Clay Argentina Juan Pablo Brzezicki 3–6, 6–3, 6–1
Winner 8. 1 November 2009 São Paulo, Brazil Clay Ecuador Nicolás Lapentti 6–4, 6–4
Runner-up 9. 30 October 2010 São Paulo, Brazil Clay Brazil Marcos Daniel 1–6, 6–3, 3–6
Winner 10. 7 July 2012 Braunschweig, Germany Clay Germany Tobias Kamke 7–6(7–4), 6–3
Winner 11. 3 November 2013 Montevideo, Uruguay Clay Argentina Diego Sebastián Schwartzman 6–4, 6–4
Runner-up 12. 10 November 2013 Bogotá, Colombia Clay Dominican Republic Víctor Estrella Burgos 2–6, 0–3 ret.

Singles performance timeline

Current till 2013 Wimbledon.

Tournament2008200920102011201220132014W–L
Grand Slam Tournaments
Australian Open A 1R 2R 2R 2R 1R 2R 4–6
French Open 1R 1R 4R 3R 1R A 5–5
Wimbledon 2R A 3R 1R 1R A 3–4
US Open 2R 2R 2R 1R 1R 1R 3–6
Win–Loss 2–3 1–3 7–4 3–4 1–4 0–2 14–20
ATP Masters Series
Indian Wells Masters 2R 3R 3R 4R 1R 4–5
Miami Masters 1R 4R 2R 1R 3R 4–5
Monte Carlo Masters 1R 1R 3R 1R 2–4
Rome Masters 1R 3R 1R 1R A 2–4
Madrid Masters 2R SF 1R A 5–3
Canada Masters 1R 1R 2R A 1R 1–4
Cincinnati Masters 1R 2R 1R A 1R 1–4
Shanghai Masters NMS 2R 2R 1R 1R A 2–4
Paris Masters 2R 1R 1R A 1–3
Win–Loss 0–2 2–4 8–9 6–9 4–7 2–5 22–34
Career statistics
Titles–Finals 0–0 1–2 1–1 0–0 1–2 0–0 3–5
Year End Ranking 85 36 31 37 33 125

Doubles performance timeline

Tournament2008200920102011201220132014SRW–L
Grand Slam Tournaments
Australian Open A 1R 1R QF 0 / 3 3–3
French Open 0 / 0 0–0
Wimbledon 1R 1R 0 / 2 0–2
US Open 1R 2R 0 / 2 1–2
Win–Loss 0–1 0–1 0–1 0–0 1–3 3–1 0 / 7 4–7

References

  1. ↑ ITF Juniors Profile Page for Bellucci, accessed 5/15/08
  2. ↑ "Bellucci claims Swiss Open title". BBC Sport. 2 August 2009. Retrieved 4 August 2009. 
  3. ↑ "Bellucci Edges Monaco To Take Santiago Title". ATP. 8 February 2010. Retrieved 29 July 2010. 
  4. ↑ Epplett, Nyree (31 May 2010). "Nadal out slugs Bellucci". Roland Garros. Retrieved 29 July 2010. 
  5. ↑ Reason, Mark (26 June 2010). "Brutal Robin Soderling crushes Thomaz Bellucci". Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 29 July 2010. 
  6. ↑ "Seppi wins Marathon". Earth times. 23 July 2010. Retrieved 29 July 2010. 
  7. ↑ "Unseeded Brazilian Thomaz Bellucci upsets Janko Tipsarevic to win the Swiss Open Title". Retrieved 23 July 2012. 
  8. ↑ http://sportv.globo.com/site/eventos/aberto-de-tenis-do-brasil/noticia/2013/02/sob-raios-trovoes-e-vaias-bellucci-vive-tarde-negra-e-tomba-em-sp.html

External links

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