Markus Hipfl (born 26 April 1978) is a former professional

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

Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...

Career

Hipfl had a noteworthy junior career. He won the Under-16s

Orange Bowl The Orange Bowl is an annual American college football bowl game played in the Miami metropolitan area. It has been played annually since January 1, 1935, making it, along with the Sugar Bowl and the Sun Bowl, the second-oldest bowl game in th ...

in 1994 and was also a finalist in that year's European Championship. In 1996 he finished runner-up in the 1996 US Open Boys' Singles, losing in the final to German

Daniel Elsner Daniel Elsner (born 4 January 1979) is a former professional German tennis player. Juniors Elsner was an outstanding juniors player. He won 3 consecutive juniors grand slam singles titles: the 1996 Juniors U.S. Open, the 1997 Juniors Australian ...

. During the

1999 ATP Tour The Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) Tour is the elite professional tennis circuit organised by the ATP. The 1999 ATP Tour calendar comprises the Grand Slam tournaments, supervised by the International Tennis Federation (ITF), the ATP S ...

, Hipfl broke into the top 100 for the first time. He made the semi-finals of

Morocco Morocco (),, ) officially the Kingdom of Morocco, is the westernmost country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It overlooks the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and has land borders with Algeria to ...

Grand Prix Hassan II The Grand Prix Hassan II is an annual men's tennis tournament on the ATP Tour and is currently part of the ATP Tour 250 series. The event is played on clay courts and was held annually at the Complexe Al Amal in Casablanca, Morocco through 2015, ...

and was a quarter-finalist at four tournaments, in

San Marino San Marino (, ), officially the Republic of San Marino ( it, Repubblica di San Marino; ), also known as the Most Serene Republic of San Marino ( it, Serenissima Repubblica di San Marino, links=no), is the fifth-smallest country in the world an ...

Sankt Pölten Sankt Pölten (; Central Bavarian: ''St. Pödn''), mostly abbreviated to the official name St. Pölten, is the capital and largest city of the State of Lower Austria in northeast Austria, with 55,538 inhabitants as of 1 January 2020. St. Pölten ...

Sicily (man) it, Siciliana (woman) , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = Ethnicity , demographics1_footnotes = , demographi ...

and

Majorca Mallorca, or Majorca, is the largest island in the Balearic Islands, which are part of Spain and located in the Mediterranean. The capital of the island, Palma, is also the capital of the autonomous community of the Balearic Islands. The Bal ...

. His best performances in 2000 included being a semi-finalist at the

Swedish Open Swedish or ' may refer to: Anything from or related to Sweden, a country in Northern Europe. Or, specifically: * Swedish language, a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Sweden and Finland ** Swedish alphabet, the official alphabet used by ...

and making another quarter-final appearance in the International Raiffeisen Grand Prix at Sankt Pölten. Hipfl bettered his previous two efforts at the Sankt Pölten tournament in 2001, making it into the final, which he lost to fellow wild card

Andrea Gaudenzi Andrea Gaudenzi (; born 30 July 1973) is an Italian former tennis player and the current chairman of the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) since January 2020. Gaudenzi was born in Faenza, Italy, in the province of Ravenna, and turned p ...

. He also reached quarter-finals at the 2001 Copa AT&T and the 2001 Estoril Open. In 2002, he reached another International Raiffeisen Grand Prix quarter-final and was also a quarter-finalist at the 2002 BellSouth Open, after which he attained his career high ranking of 63. At Grand Slams during his career he won a total of three matches, all in separate tournaments. His wins came against

Andrew Ilie Andrew Ilie (born 18 April 1976) is a former tennis player. Ilie fled Romania at age 10 with his family, spending a year at a refugee camp in Austria before emigrating to Australia. He turned professional in 1994 and became a citizen of Austra ...

at the 1999 US Open,

Nicolas Mahut Nicolas Pierre Armand Mahut (; born 21 January 1982) is a French professional tennis player who is a former world No. 1 in doubles. He is a five-time Grand Slam champion in doubles, having completed the career Grand Slam with victories at the ...

in the

2000 French Open The 2000 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 29 May until 11 June. It was the 104th staging of the French Open, and the second Gra ...

and

Nikolay Davydenko Nikolay Vladimirovich Davydenko ( rus, Никола́й Влади́мирович Давыде́нко ; born 2 June 1981) is a Ukrainian-born Russian former professional tennis player. He achieved a career-high singles ranking of World No. 3 i ...

at the

2002 Australian Open The 2002 Australian Open was a tennis tournament played on outdoor hard courts at Melbourne Park in Melbourne in Australia. It was the 90th edition of the Australian Open and was held from 14 through 27 January 2002 and attracted an attendance of ...

. He competed in four successive

Wimbledon Championships The Wimbledon Championships, commonly known simply as Wimbledon, is the oldest tennis tournament in the world and is widely regarded as the most prestigious. It has been held at the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club, All England Club in ...

from 1999 to 2002 but on each occasion lost in the opening round by five sets. The closest he got to registering a win was in

2002 File:2002 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 2002 Winter Olympics are held in Salt Lake City; Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother and her daughter Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon die; East Timor gains East Timor independence, indepe ...

when he lost 9–11 in the final set, to French qualifier

Nicolas Thomann Nicolas Thomann (born 29 November 1972) is a former professional tennis player from France. Career Thomann was a quarter-finalist in the 2000 Davidoff Swiss Indoors, beating top 50 players Nicolas Escudé and Nicolás Lapentti en route. His be ...

, despite serving 38 aces. He took part in five

ATP World Tour Masters 1000 The ATP Masters 1000 tournaments (previously known as ATP Masters Series) is an annual series of nine tennis tournaments featuring the top-ranked players on the ATP Tour. The series' events have been held in Europe and North America since the ...

tournaments during his career, only once failing to get past the first round. In both the 2001 and 2002

Monte-Carlo Masters The Monte-Carlo Masters is an annual tennis tournament for male professional players held in Roquebrune-Cap-Martin, France, a commune that borders on Monaco. The event is part of the ATP Tour Masters 1000 on the Association of Tennis Professiona ...

he defeated

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 ...

, the second time coming when the

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...

n was the third-ranked player in the

ATP rankings The Pepperstone ATP rankings are the merit-based method used by the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) for determining the qualification for entry as well as the seeding of players in all singles and doubles tournaments. The first rankings ...

. Hipfl also played in seven

Davis Cup The Davis Cup is the premier international team event in men's tennis. It is run by the International Tennis Federation (ITF) and is contested annually between teams from competing countries in a knock-out format. It is described by the organis ...

ties for the Austrian team and had a 10–3 record, all in singles. In 1999, he helped Austria qualify for the following year's World Group with a straight sets win over Sweden's

Magnus Gustafsson Magnus Nils Gustafsson (born 3 January 1967) is a tennis coach and former top ten professional tennis player from Sweden. Gustafsson won 14 tour singles titles during his career and finished 15 consecutive seasons within the world's top 100, re ...

, in the fifth and decisive rubber. He had earlier upset world number 23

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 ...

Junior Grand Slam finals

Singles: 1 (1 runner-up)

ATP career finals

Singles: 1 (1 runner-up)

ATP Challenger and ITF Futures finals

Singles: 8 (2–6)

Doubles: 1 (0–1)

Performance timeline

Singles

External links

* *

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hipfl, Markus 1978 births Living people Austrian male tennis players Austrian expatriate sportspeople in Monaco People from Wels People from Monte Carlo Sportspeople from Upper Austria