Jürgen Zopp (born 29 March 1988) is a retired professional Estonian

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. He is Estonia's all-time highest ranked male tennis player with a career-high singles ranking of World No. 71 in 2012.

Career

Zopp started playing tennis at the age of 6 and grew up idolizing

Pete Sampras Petros "Pete" Sampras ( el, Πέτρος Σάμπρας; born August 12, 1971) is an American former world No. 1 tennis player. His professional career began in 1988 and ended at the 2002 US Open, which he won, defeating longtime rival Andre ...

Marat Safin Marat Mubinovich Safin ( rus, Мара́т Муби́нович Са́фин, , mɐˈrat ˈsafʲɪn, Ru-Marat-Safin.ogg; tt-Cyrl, Марат Мөбин улы Сафин; born 27 January 1980) is a Russian retired world No. 1 tennis player an ...

, and

Roger Federer Roger Federer (; born 8 August 1981) is a Swiss former professional tennis player. He was ranked List of ATP number 1 ranked singles tennis players#Weeks at No. 1, world No. 1 by the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) for 310 weeks, in ...

. Zopp had a somewhat successful junior career, reaching the second round of the

Australian Australian(s) may refer to: Australia * Australia, a country * Australians, citizens of the Commonwealth of Australia ** European Australians ** Anglo-Celtic Australians, Australians descended principally from British colonists ** Aboriginal A ...

and US Open Boys' tournaments in 2006. In 2008, he would officially turn pro. Zopp made a breakthrough on the ATP tour in 2012, qualifying for the main draws of the

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 ...

Roland-Garros 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 ...

and

Wimbledon Wimbledon most often refers to: * Wimbledon, London, a district of southwest London * Wimbledon Championships, the oldest tennis tournament in the world and one of the four Grand Slam championships Wimbledon may also refer to: Places London * ...

boosting his ranking to the point where he didn’t have to go through qualifying by the time the US Open came around. and achieving his first main draw ATP tournament win at the 2012 Bucharest Open establishing himself as a top-100 player in the ATP rankings at world No. 71. 2013-2014 would see a huge dip in form and rankings as his ranking plummeted all the way down to the 300s in 2014. Early 2017 would be the lowest of his career as his ranking dropped to 500 on June 12, 2017. Late 2017 would see a steady increase of form and rankings grabbing a handful of challenger and ITF finals. However still struggling to even qualify for an ATP event. In qualifying for the

2018 French Open The 2018 French Open was a Grand Slam (tennis), major tennis tournament played on outdoor clay courts. It took place at the Stade Roland Garros in Paris, France, from 27 May to 10 June and consisted of events for players in singles, doubles and m ...

he defeated

Thanasi Kokkinakis Athanasios "Thanasi" Kokkinakis ( ; born 10 April 1996) is an Australian professional tennis player and a doubles specialist. He has been ranked as high as world No. 69 in singles by the ATP, which he first achieved on 8 June 2015. He has won ...

. Although he lost in the final round of qualifying to

Denis Kudla Denis Kudla ( ; born August 17, 1992) is an American professional tennis player. A product of the Junior Tennis Champions Center, he has won eight Challenger singles titles and nine Challenger doubles titles in his career. His career-high ATP ...

it was enough for him to make the main draw as a

lucky loser A lucky loser is a sports competitor (player or team) who loses a match in a knockout tournament or loses in qualifying, but who then enters the main draw, usually when another competitor withdraws during the tournament because of illness, injury ...

. In the first round he defeated American seed

Jack Sock Jack Sock (born September 24, 1992) is an American professional tennis player. He has won four career ATP singles titles and 17 doubles titles, and has career-high rankings of world No. 8 in singles (on 20 November 2017) and world No. 2 in dou ...

for his sixth tour level win on clay. He then defeated fellow lucky loser

Ruben Bemelmans Ruben Bemelmans (; born 14 January 1988) is a Belgian former professional tennis player. He has a career-high ATP ranking of world No. 84 in singles, achieved on 28 September 2015, and world No. 128 in doubles, achieved on 1 October 2012. Beme ...

despite losing the first two sets, therefore reaching a career-best third round at Grand Slam events. He was the first Estonian player to reach the third round of a Grand Slam. His run ended in the third round following a defeat to

Maximilian Marterer Maximilian Marterer (born 15 June 1995) is a German tennis player. He has a career high ATP singles ranking of world No. 45, achieved in August 2018. Professional career 2015: ATP debut Marterer made his ATP main draw debut at the MercedesCup ...

. At the 2018 Swiss Open Gstaad, he defeated the 1st seed

Fabio Fognini Fabio Fognini (; born 24 May 1987) is an Italian professional tennis player. He has a career-high ranking of world No. 9 achieved on 15 July 2019. He is currently ranked (July 2022) in 64th place by the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) ...

and made it all the way to the semifinals before losing to

Matteo Berrettini Matteo Berrettini (; born 12 April 1996) is an Italian professional tennis player. He has been ranked as high as world No. 6 in singles by the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP), which he achieved in January 2022, and world No. 105 in dou ...

. 2018 is considered by some to be the best year of his career as he returned to the top 100 for the first time since 2012 and started consistently qualifying for ATP events again. 2019 would see a dip in form and rankings again. He failed to make an ATP event or a challenger final the entire year and his ranking dropped back down to the 400s again by the end of the year. On December 18, 2020, Zopp announced his retirement from tennis.

Grand Slam performance timeline

ATP Challenger and ITF Futures finals

Singles: 24 (18–6)

Doubles: 13 (4–9)

References

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Zopp, Jurgen 1988 births Living people Sportspeople from Tallinn Estonian male tennis players