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Some lesser known but unique tennis players

Roar Guru
3rd February, 2017
18

We all know a lot about Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, Pete Sampras, Andre Agassi, Bjorn Borg and John McEnroe.

However, there are plenty of lesser lights in the game of tennis.

After going through well over 100 players, I have finally identified five who are lesser known but unique in their own way.

Marty Riessen
Many may not have even heard the name of this tennis player from Florida. Marty has a 6-7 career head-to-head record versus the incomparable Rod Laver.

Interestingly Laver won two, then Marty won two. And then they won one each until Laver won their 13th match to finish at 7-6. Marty did not have a great career having only won six singles titles. He reached the singles quarter finals four times, including once each at Australian Open and Wimbledon and twice at US Open.

However he was a competent doubles player with 53 titles, including the US Open and French Open. He also reached the doubles finals in the other two majors and was double runners up four times.

He also won seven Mixed doubles titles including a career Grand Slam with tennis great Margaret Court.

His uniqueness is his competitive tennis record with the incomparable Laver. He has been described as a player no one wanted to meat in the early rounds and had some memorable early wins including defeating Arthur Ashe at Wimbledon.

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Miroslav Mecir
Mecir, nicknamed the Big Cat, retired from tennis at only 26 due to injuries.

Mecir won the 1988 Olympic Singles Gold Medal. He reached the Australian Open final once and semi-finals of the other two Grand Slams once each.

He has wins over every top player and stopped Mats Wilander from winning a potential Grand Slam by defeating him in the quarter final in Wimbledon in Mats’ best ever year. Mecir was called the Swede Killer for his unbelievable 7-3 head to head record against the far superior Mats Wilander.

He also defeated Edberg once at Wimbledon, though he lost twice to him there as well.

Slovodan Zivijinovic
He won only two singles titles and eight doubles titles and his highest rank was 19 in the world.

He is the only player from Serbia to be ranked world number one in doubles and he reached the semi-finals once each at Australian Open and Wimbledon.

Slobodan married Lepa Brena, Yogoslavia’s biggest ever commercial singing star, and their wedding was a huge media sensation.

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Aaron Krickstein
He was the youngest ever player to break into the top ten, doing so at 17. For someone who was hit by injuries throughout his career he was ironically nicknamed ‘Marathon Man’ for his fifth set playing ability.

In his career he played as many as 35 five setters and won 27 of them. He won ten matches after losing the first two sets. In his career he had a highest ever ranking of six but achieved only two semi final finishes at the Grand Slams, once each at US Open and Australian Open.

I end my list of five with the Scud, Mark Philippoussis
Born of a Greek father and Italian mother, Scud was an Aussie champion who had a fearsome serve.

He was a top ten player with a highest ranking of 8. He is both a Wimbledon as well as a US Open Finalist, losing to Roger Federer and Pat Rafter respectively. His biggest achievement however were in Davis Cup when he helped Australia win in 1998 and 2003 versus France and Spain, where he won the deciding singles each time.

He could have been a great tennis player but it was not to be.

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