Kristian Pless


Kristian Peter Pless is a former professional male tennis player from Denmark.

Tennis career

Juniors

Pless had an excellent junior career, winning the 1999 Australian Open Boys' Singles, and reaching the Boys' final at both Wimbledon, and the US Open the same year. He finished 1999 as the No. 1 ranked junior player in the world.

Pro tour

He turned professional in 1999, and on 28 January 2002, Kristian Pless reached his career-high ATP singles ranking of World No. 65. He has won tournaments at the Futures and Challenger levels, and has reached three semifinals on the ATP Tour. He suffered a serious shoulder injury in 2003, which after multiple surgery kept him out of competition for almost a year.
After returning from injury in 2004, he had dropped in the rankings to World No. 846 on May 24. Subsequently, he has gradually climbed the rankings, and after successful performances at the Challenger level in the fall of 2006, he entered the Top 100 again. In January 2007, he continued his good performances as he defeated World No. 8 David Nalbandian in three sets in the first round of Chennai Open. This was Pless' first win against a Top-10 ranked player.
In 2007 he also managed to take a set from tennis legend Roger Federer at their meeting in Dubai, but eventually Federer won the tie 7–6, 3–6, 6–3. It was first set Federer had lost that year after he had won the Australian Open without losing a single set.
In 2008 he reached two Challenger finals, but ended the year outside of Top 100. 2009 was his last year on tour.

Singles titles (4)

Legend
Grand Slam
Tennis Masters Cup
ATP Masters Series
ATP Tour
Challengers

No.DateTournamentSurfaceOpponentScore
1.14 May 2001EdinburghClay Gorka Fraile6–3, 6–3
2.3 December 2001Rio de JaneiroClay Ricardo Mello6–1, 6–1
3.30 October 2006RimouskiHard Lu Yen-hsun6–4, 7–6
4.26 March 2007St. BrieucClay Farrukh Dustov6–3, 6–1

Grand Slam performance timeline

Tournament200120022003200420052006200720082009Career
Australian OpenA3R1RAAA1RAA2–3
French Open2R1RA1RA1R2RAA2–5
Wimbledon2R1RA1RA1R1RAA1–5
U.S. Open2R2RA2RA2R1RAA4–5
Grand Slam W-L3–33–30–11–40–01–31–40–00–09-18