Wayne Arthurs (tennis)


Wayne Arthurs is a retired Australian professional tennis player.

Career

His serve was his strongest weapon by far, and had been referred to as the "best in the world" by several of his fellow players, including Jim Courier, Andre Agassi, Thomas Johansson, and Ivo Karlović. He consistently had one of the highest ace counts on the ATP Tour and favours a serve-and-volley style of play. Because of this, his game is best suited to fast surfaces.
Arthurs has won 12 ATP doubles titles in his career. In February 2005 he achieved a belated breakthrough in singles by winning the ATP event in Scottsdale, United States, the Tennis Channel Open, in straight sets over Croat Mario Ančić. No other player in history had won his first ATP singles title at such an advanced age. He also was a runner-up there for doubles with Paul Hanley, and lost to American team Bob and Mike Bryan. He is an Australian hero when it comes to Davis Cup, winning countless doubles rubbers for Australia. Throughout his singles career Arthurs experienced victory over no fewer than six players who have reached the number 1 world ranking: Pete Sampras, Marat Safin, Yevgeny Kafelnikov, Patrick Rafter, Andy Roddick and Gustavo Kuerten. He also beat Stefan Edberg in a money tournament in England on Grass - at the time, Arthurs' singles ranking was 1100 and Edberg's was 2, making for one of the biggest differences in ranking between winner and loser on the Tour that year.
In his last ever Australian Open match the Aussie retired just three games into his third-round match against American Mardy Fish due to a rare reaction to a local anaesthetic. In practice that morning he tried out a short-term local anaesthetic that worked well against his sore hip. Just before the match began, he took another shot that was supposed to last for the duration of the match. The stronger dose deadened his leg and he could not co-ordinate his movements. He refused to blame his doctors who said that this adverse reaction happens to about 1 in 1000 patients. Arthurs became emotional during the match once he realised he couldn't compete. After the in-between-game break, down 3–0 he waved to the crowd who thanked him for an outstanding career. It was the last Australian Open match of his career. At the time, he was the oldest participant in the Australian Open.
Arthurs played his final tournament at Wimbledon in 2007. He won qualifying matches to advance to the main draw of the major tournament. In the first round he came back from two sets down to finally win in five sets against Dutch teenager Thiemo de Bakker. In the second round Arthurs caused a major boilover by defeating the 11th-seeded Spaniard Tommy Robredo in straight sets. Arthurs was defeated in the third round by 19th seed Jonas Björkman in straight sets.
On 30 August 2000, Arthurs was awarded the Australian Sports Medal for his strong commitment to tennis.
He now coaches the young Queensland player Oliver Anderson.
In January 2019 Arthurs received the OLY post-nominal title at the Brisbane International tournament.

Singles finals (1 title, 1 runner-up)

ResultNo.DateTournamentSurfaceOpponentScore
Loss1.Jun 2002Nottingham, United KingdomGrass Jonas Björkman2–6, 7–6, 2–6
Win1.Feb 2005Scottsdale, United StatesHard Mario Ančić7–5, 6–3

Grand Slam singles performance timeline

Tournament1998199920002001200220032004200520062007Career SR
Australian OpenA1R1R3R1R2R2R1R1R3R0 / 9
French OpenAA1R4R2R1R1R1R1RA0 / 7
WimbledonA4R1R1R4R2R1R2R1R3R0 / 9
US Open2R2R4R1R1R1R1R1RAA0 / 8
Grand Slam SR0 / 10 / 30 / 40 / 40 / 40 / 40 / 40 / 40 / 30 / 20 / 33