Filip Dewulf (born 15 March 1972) is a former professional male

tennis 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 ...

player from Belgium. In his career, he won two

ATP Tour The ATP Tour is a worldwide top-tier tennis tour for men organized by the Association of Tennis Professionals. The second-tier tour is the ATP Challenger Tour and the third-tier is the ITF Men's World Tennis Tour. The equivalent women's organis ...

singles titles and one title in doubles. In

1997 File:1997 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The movie set of ''Titanic'', the highest-grossing movie in history at the time; ''Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone'', is published; Comet Hale-Bopp passes by Earth and becomes one of t ...

he reached the semifinals of the

French Open The French Open (french: Internationaux de France de tennis), also known as Roland-Garros (), is a major tennis tournament held over two weeks at the Stade Roland Garros in Paris, France, beginning in late May each year. The tournament and ven ...

, his best singles result ever and the first Belgian tennis player (male or female) to reach the semi-final at a Grand Slam tournament. He defeated

Cristiano Caratti Cristiano Caratti (born 24 May 1970) is a former ATP Tour tennis player from Italy. He reached the quarterfinals of the 1991 Australian Open and the 1991 Miami Masters. Junior tennis career Started playing tennis at age 9. His younger brother al ...

Fernando Meligeni Fernando Ariel Meligeni (born April 12, 1971), nicknamed ''Fininho'' (diminutive form in Portuguese for ''thin''), is a Brazilian former professional tennis player. He won 3 singles titles and reached the semi-finals of both the 1999 French Ope ...

Albert Portas Albert Portas Soy (, ; born 15 November 1973) is a Spanish former professional tennis player. Career Portas turned professional in 1994. He reached his career-high singles ranking of World No. 19 in October 2001. His only top-level singles tit ...

Àlex Corretja Àlex Corretja i Verdegay (; born 11 April 1974) is a Spanish former professional tennis player. During his career, he was twice a major runner-up at the French Open (in 1998 and 2001), won the Tour Finals in 1998, reached a career-high singl ...

and

Magnus Norman Magnus Norman (born 30 May 1976) is a Swedish tennis coach and retired professional tennis player. He reached a career-high Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) world No. 2 singles ranking on June 12, 2000. His career highlights include re ...

before he was defeated in four sets by the eventual champion,

Gustavo Kuerten Gustavo "Guga" Kuerten (; born 10 September 1976) is a Brazilian former world No. 1 tennis player. He won the French Open singles title three times ( 1997, 2000, and 2001), and was the Tennis Masters Cup champion in 2000. During his career he ...

. This was, according to Roland Garros itself, the best performance that a qualifier has performed at a French Open, and only the third time in Grand Slam history that a qualifier had reached a semi-final. Dewulf would also reach the quarter-finals at the same event the following year, falling to eventual runner-up

in straight sets. His career-high singles ranking was world No. 39, achieved in September 1997; he became the first Belgian in ATP Top 50, overall finishing four seasons as the top-ranked Belgian player.ATP Tour profiles
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ATP career finals

Singles: 2 (2 titles)

Doubles: 1 (1 title)

ATP Challenger and ITF Futures finals

Singles: 6 (1–5)

Doubles: 10 (6–4)

Performance timeline

Singles

References

External links

* * * 1972 births Living people Belgian male tennis players People from Mol, Belgium Sportspeople from Limburg (Belgium) 20th-century Belgian people {{Belgium-tennis-bio-stub