Alberto Berasategui Salazar (born 28 June 1973) is a former top-10 professional
tennis player
Tennis is a racket sport that is played either individually against a single opponent (singles) or between two teams of two players each (doubles). Each player uses a tennis racket that is strung with cord to strike a hollow rubber ball cove ...
from Spain. He was a
Grand Slam
Grand Slam most often refers to:
* Grand Slam (tennis), one player or pair winning all four major annual tournaments, or the tournaments themselves
Grand Slam or Grand slam may also refer to:
Games and sports
* Grand slam, winning category te ...
finalist at the
1994 French Open
The 1994 French Open was a tennis tournament that took place on the outdoor clay courts at the Stade Roland Garros in Paris, France. The tournament was held from 23 May until 5 June. It was the 98th staging of the French Open, and the second Gra ...
, and won a total of 14
ATP singles titles, achieving a career-high singles ranking of world no. 7 in November 1994.
Tennis career
Berasategui won a total of 14 top-level singles titles and one tour doubles title. All of them, as well as all losses in finals, were on clay. He won at least one singles title for six consecutive years (1993–1998). He began playing tennis at age seven and was the European junior champion in 1991. He turned professional later that year, and won his first top-level singles title in 1993, two years later.
In 1994, Berasategui reached nine finals, winning seven of them. He also reached his first
Grand Slam
Grand Slam most often refers to:
* Grand Slam (tennis), one player or pair winning all four major annual tournaments, or the tournaments themselves
Grand Slam or Grand slam may also refer to:
Games and sports
* Grand slam, winning category te ...
final at the
French Open, where he defeated
Wayne Ferreira
Wayne Richard Ferreira (born 15 September 1971) is a South African former professional tennis player and current tennis coach.
Career
As a junior player, Ferreira was ranked world no. 1 junior doubles player and no. 6 junior singles player. He ...
,
Cédric Pioline,
Yevgeny Kafelnikov
Yevgeny Aleksandrovich Kafelnikov ( rus, Евгений Александрович Кафельников, , jɪvˈɡʲenʲɪj ˈkafʲɪlʲnʲɪkəf, a=Ru-Yevgeny-Kafelnikov.ogg; born 18 February 1974) is a Russian former world No. 1 tennis p ...
,
Javier Frana
Javier Alberto Frana (born 25 December 1966) is a former tennis player from Argentina and former tennis commentator for ESPN Latin America. He won 1996 French Open Mixed Doubles title with compatriot Patricia Tarabini.
Tennis career
Frana tur ...
,
Goran Ivanišević
Goran Ivanišević (; born 13 September 1971) is a Croatian former professional tennis player and current coach. He is the only player to win a Wimbledon singles title as a wildcard. He achieved this in 2001 while ranked world No. 125, after ...
and
Magnus Larsson
Per Henrik ''Magnus'' Larsson (born 25 March 1970) is a former professional tennis player from Sweden.
Playing career
Larsson turned professional in 1989 and won his first top-level singles title at Florence in 1990. His first doubles title ...
to face fellow Spaniard and defending champion
Sergi Bruguera
Sergi Bruguera i Torner (; born 16 January 1971) is a former professional tennis player from Spain. He won consecutive men's singles titles at the French Open in 1993 and 1994, a silver medal at the 1996 Olympic Games in men's singles and reache ...
who defeated him in four sets.
Berasategui retired from the professional tour in May 2001, having had persistent wrist injuries since his match with
Hernán Gumy
Hernán Gumy (born 5 March 1972) is a former tennis player from Argentina, who turned professional in 1991. He represented his native country at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, Georgia, where he was defeated in the first round by Venezuela' ...
at the
Bologna
Bologna (, , ; egl, label=Emilian language, Emilian, Bulåggna ; lat, Bononia) is the capital and largest city of the Emilia-Romagna region in Northern Italy. It is the seventh most populous city in Italy with about 400,000 inhabitants and 1 ...
tournament in June 1998. The injuries had an adverse effect on his results and form, and had caused his consistency and ranking to decline. He also suffered severe cramps of unknown origin in long matches.
Playing style
Berasategui was known for his extreme western grip, known as the "Hawaiian grip", where his unusual hold on the racket would allow him to hit both forehands and backhands with the same side of the racket.
[Roetert, P. & J.L. Groppel: ''World-Class Tennis Technique'', p. 156. Human Kinetics, 2001.] This helped him on clay, but he did not have much of an impact on other surfaces except for a quarterfinals appearance at the
1998 Australian Open
The 1998 Australian Open was a tennis tournament played on outdoor hard courts at Albert Park in Melbourne in Victoria in Australia. It was the 86th edition of the Australian Open and was held from 19 January through 1 February 1998.
Seniors
M ...
, after having beaten world No. 2,
Patrick Rafter
Patrick Michael Rafter (born 28 December 1972) is an Australian former world No. 1 tennis player. He reached the top Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) singles ranking on 26 July 1999. His career highlights include consecutive US Open ...
in four sets in the third round, and came back from two sets down to beat the
1995
File:1995 Events Collage V2.png, From left, clockwise: O.J. Simpson is acquitted of the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman from the year prior in "The Trial of the Century" in the United States; The Great Hanshin earthquake str ...
,
2000
File:2000 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Protests against Bush v. Gore after the 2000 United States presidential election; Heads of state meet for the Millennium Summit; The International Space Station in its infant form as seen from ...
, and
2001
The September 11 attacks against the United States by Al-Qaeda, which Casualties of the September 11 attacks, killed 2,977 people and instigated the global war on terror, were a defining event of 2001. The United States led a Participants in ...
Australian Open
The Australian Open is a tennis tournament held annually at Melbourne Park in Melbourne, Australia. The tournament is the first of the four Grand Slam tennis events held each year, preceding the French Open, Wimbledon, and the US Open. Th ...
champion, former and future world No. 1,
Andre Agassi
Andre Kirk Agassi ( ; born April 29, 1970) is an American former world No. 1 tennis player. He is an eight-time major champion and an Olympic gold medalist, as well as a runner-up in seven other majors.
Agassi is the second of five men to ach ...
, in the fourth round. He lost in quarterfinals to
Marcelo Ríos
Marcelo Andrés Ríos Mayorga (; born 26 December 1975) is a Chilean former world No. 1 tennis player. Nicknamed ''"El Chino"'' ("The Chinese") and ''"El zurdo de Vitacura"'' ("The Lefty from Vitacura"), he became the first Latin American play ...
after winning a tight first-set tiebreak.
Grand Slam finals
Singles: 1 (1 runner-up)
ATP career finals
Singles: 23 (14 titles, 9 runner-ups)
Doubles: 4 (1 title, 3 runner-ups)
ATP Challenger and ITF Futures finals
Singles: 10 (7–3)
Doubles: 1 (1–0)
Performance timeline
Singles
Doubles
References
External links
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Berasategui, Alberto
Spanish expatriate sportspeople in Andorra
Spanish male tennis players
1973 births
Living people
People from Arrigorriaga
Mediterranean Games medalists in tennis
Mediterranean Games silver medalists for Spain
Mediterranean Games bronze medalists for Spain
Competitors at the 1991 Mediterranean Games
Competitors at the 1993 Mediterranean Games
Sportspeople from Biscay
Tennis players from the Basque Country (autonomous community)