Thomas Johansson


Karl Thomas Conny Johansson is a coach and retired professional tennis player from Sweden. He reached a career-high Association of Tennis Professionals world No. 7 singles ranking on 10 May 2002. His career highlights in singles include a Grand Slam title at the Australian Open in 2002, and an ATP Masters Series title at the 1999 Canada Masters. He also won a silver medal at the 2008 Summer Olympics in men's doubles, partnering Simon Aspelin.
Johansson remains the last man from Sweden to win a Grand Slam in singles.
He is the coach of David Goffin.

Tennis career

Juniors

Johansson began to play tennis at age five with his father, Krister. In 1989, became European 14s singles champion and won doubles title. Even when he injured his right elbow while playing the Orange Bowl tennis championships 16s in 1991, he still reached the final, losing to Spain's Gonzalo Corrales. He finished No. 10 in the 1993 world junior rankings.

Professional career

That same year he joined the pro tour for the first time, and turned pro the following year. He has managed to win 9 top-level singles titles and 1 doubles title, including the 1999 Canada Masters, defeating world No. 4 Yevgeny Kafelnikov from a set down, and the 2002 Australian Open, which he unexpectedly won after defeating Jacobo Díaz, Markus Hipfl, Younes El Aynaoui, Adrian Voinea, Jonas Björkman and Jiří Novák before defeating his heavily favored opponent in the final, Marat Safin, in four sets, again from a set down. Johansson became the first Swedish player to win a Slam since Stefan Edberg won the 1992 US Open title, and the first Swede to claim the Australian Open since his idol Mats Wilander in 1988.
A knee injury robbed Johansson of the latter half of the 2002 season and all of 2003, and Johansson was therefore unable to compete until the start of 2004. Many people weren't sure if Johansson will be able to compete again because of the seriousness of the injury. In 2005, he made a comeback to become the first Swedish player to reach the semifinals at Wimbledon since Edberg in 1993, and only dropped a set en route, losing to 2nd seed Andy Roddick in a tightly contested four set match that lasted a minute under 3 hours, 7–6, 2–6, 6–7, 6–7. Near the end of the season, Johansson won his 9th and last ATP tour title in St. Petersburg, defeating Nicolas Kiefer in straight sets.
In 2006, the Swede struggled through the season after suffering an eye injury early in the season. The highlights of the season were a 4th round at the Australian Open, his first doubles title in Båstad, Sweden with countryman Jonas Björkman, and a final in St. Petersburg, where he was the defending champion.
At the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics he reached the doubles final with Simon Aspelin, where he lost against the Swiss team of Roger Federer and Stanislas Wawrinka in 4 sets.
As of 6 March 2009, he has an 18–15 career Davis Cup record in 17 ties, having played for Sweden every year other than 2003 since 1998, and a 356–292 career overall.
He announced his retirement in June 2009 after a 15-year career.

Personal life

His idol while growing up was Mats Wilander, who was the captain of Swedish Davis Cup team. He is also a keen player of golf and floorball, and a fan of ice hockey. He scored two goals and assisted on another in 6–5 win by ATP Stars over National Hockey League Players in an annual street hockey challenge in Montreal in 2001. He married Gisella Kaltencher on 3 December 2005.

Equipment

He is sponsored by Dunlop Sport for racquets and apparel, and adidas for shoes. He uses a heavily modified Dunlop Pro Revelation racquet 'paintjobbed' to look like the current Dunlop 4D Aerogel 500 racquet.

Significant finals

Grand Slam finals

Singles: 1 (1 title)

ATP Masters Series finals

Singles: 1 (1 title)

Olympics

Doubles: 1 (1 Silver)

ATP career finals

Singles: 14 (9 wins, 5 losses)

ResultW/LDateTournamentSurfaceOpponentScore
Win1–0Mar 1997Copenhagen, DenmarkCarpet Martin Damm6–4, 3–6, 6–2
Win2–0Mar 1997St. Petersburg, RussiaCarpet Renzo Furlan6–3, 6–4
Loss2–1Mar 1998Rotterdam, NetherlandsCarpet Jan Siemerink6–7, 2–6
Loss2–2Nov 1998Stockholm, SwedenHard Todd Martin3–6, 4–6, 4–6
Win3–2Aug 1999Montreal, CanadaHard Yevgeny Kafelnikov1–6, 6–3, 6–3
Win4–2Nov 2000Stockholm, SwedenHard Yevgeny Kafelnikov6–2, 6–4, 6–4
Win5–2Jun 2001Halle, GermanyGrass Fabrice Santoro6–3, 6–7, 6–2
Win6–2Jun 2001Nottingham, UKGrass Harel Levy7–5, 6–3
Win7–2Jan 2002Australian Open, AustraliaHard Marat Safin3–6, 6–4, 6–4, 7–6
Loss7–3Jun 2004Nottingham, UKGrass Paradorn Srichaphan6–1, 6–7, 3–6
Win8–3Oct 2004Stockholm, SwedenHard Andre Agassi3–6, 6–3, 7–6
Win9–3Oct 2005St. Petersburg, RussiaCarpet Nicolas Kiefer6–4, 6–2
Loss9–4Oct 2006St. Petersburg, RussiaCarpet Mario Ančić5–7, 6–7
Loss9–5Oct 2007Stockholm, SwedenHard Ivo Karlović3–6, 6–3, 1–6

Doubles: 2 (1 win, 1 loss)


ResultW/LDateTournamentSurfacePartnerOpponentsScore
Win1–0Jul 2006Båstad, SwedenClay Jonas Björkman Christopher Kas
Oliver Marach
6–3, 4–6,
Loss1–1Aug 2008Summer Olympics, ChinaHard Simon Aspelin Roger Federer
Stanislas Wawrinka
3–6, 4–6, 7–6, 3–6

Performance timelines

Singles

Davis Cup matches are included in the statistics.

Top 10 wins

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