RICHARD KRAJICEK

'Richard Peter Stanislav Krajicek' (born December 6, 1971) is a Dutch former professional tennis player. In 1996 he won the men's singles title at Wimbledon. Since 2004 he has been the tournament director of the ABN AMRO World Tennis Tournament in Rotterdam. He is also the author of various sportsbooks.

Contents

Personal life

Career

Career statistics

Grand Slam finals

Singles

Wins (1)

Grand Slam singles performance timeline

Masters Series finals

Singles

Wins (2)

Runner-ups (4)

Career finals

Singles

Wins (17)

Runner-ups (9)

Bibliography

References

External links

Personal life

Richard Krajicek was born on December 6, 1971 in Rotterdam in the Netherlands. He is the son of Czech immigrants.
His half sister Michaëlla Krajicek is also a professional tennis player.
In 1999, Krajicek married model, actress and writer Daphne Deckers.

Career

Richard Krajicek began playing tennis at the age of four. As a youngster he won the Dutch 12-under and 14-under National Championships twice each. He turned professional in 1989, and in 1991 won his first top-level singles title at Hong Kong, and his first tour doubles title in Hilversum.
In 1992, the 6ft 5 inch Dutchman reached his first Grand Slam semi-final at the Australian Open, but then had to withdraw from his semi-final match due to a shoulder injury. The following year, he reached the semi-finals at the French Open where he lost in four sets to the defending champion Jim Courier. Further in 1992, Krajicek made a controversial comment regarding equal pay for women in grand slam events, saying, "Eighty percent of the top 100 women are fat pigs who don't deserve equal pay." Later, he jokingly clarified his comments, remarking, "What I meant to say was that only 75 percent are fat pigs." [1]
Coming into Wimbledon in 1996, Krajicek had never previously progressed beyond the fourth round, and had lost in the first round in the two previous years. He was a player with undoubted potential, but was not considered to be one of the strongest contenders to win the title. The clear favourite was Pete Sampras, who had won the title for the past three consecutive years. Despite being ranked within the world's top 16, Krajicek just missed out on the seedings for the tournament, but when seventh seed (and world number one) Thomas Muster pulled out shortly before the tournament due to injury, Krajicek was given Muster's place in the draw.
He beat former champion Michael Stich in the fourth round, and then met Sampras in the quarter-finals. Krajicek shocked the tennis world by defeating Sampras in straight sets 7-5, 7-6, 6-4, becoming the only player to beat Sampras in a Wimbledon singles match in the eight-year period from 1993-2000. He then beat Australia's Jason Stoltenberg in the semi-finals, and went on to face American MaliVai Washington in the final. He won the final in straight sets 6-3, 6-4, 6-3 to become the first Dutchman to win Wimbledon.
Krajicek's victory over Sampras proved to be no fluke. He amassed a 6-4 record against the American player.
In 1998, Krajicek was in the Wimbledon semi-finals again, where he lost to Goran Ivanišević in a marathon match 6-3, 6-4, 5-7, 6-7, 15-13. His final attempt at winning a second Wimbledon title was in 2002, when he lost in the quarter-finals to Xavier Malisse. Krajicek retired from the professional tour in 2003. During his career, he won 17 singles titles and 3 doubles titles. His career-high singles ranking was world number 4 in 1999.
Since retiring from the ATP circuit, Krajicek runs The Richard Krajicek Foundation which builds sports facilities for children in Holland's inner-city areas.[2] In 2004 Krajicek became the tournament director of the ABN AMRO World Tennis Tournament in Rotterdam.
In 2005, he published a book on tennis called 'Fast Balls' (Dutch: 'Harde Ballen').

Career statistics

Grand Slam finals

Singles

Wins (1)

'Year	'Championship	'Opponent in Final	'Score in Final
1996	Wimbledon	MaliVai Washington	6-3, 6-4, 6-3

Grand Slam singles performance timeline

Tournament	2003	2002	2001	2000	1999	1998	1997	1996	1995	1994	1993	1992	1991	Career SR	Career win-loss	Win %
Australian Open	2R	-	-	2R	3R	-	-	3R	2R	-	2R	SF	4R	0 / 8	15-8	65.2%
French Open	-	-	-	3R	2R	3R	3R	QF	2R	3R	SF	3R	2R	0 / 10	22-10	68.8%
Wimbledon	-	QF	-	2R	3R	SF	4R	'W'	1R	1R	4R	3R	3R	1 / 11	25-10	71.4%
US Open	-	1R	-	QF	QF	3R	QF	1R	3R	2R	4R	4R	1R	0 / 11	23-11	67.6%

Masters Series finals

Singles

Wins (2)

'Year	'Championship	'Opponent in Final	'Score in Final
1998	Stuttgart	Yevgeny Kafelnikov	6-4, 6-3, 6-3
1999	Key Biscane	Sébastien Grosjean	4-6, 6-1, 6-2, 7-5

Runner-ups (4)

'Year	'Championship	'Opponent in Final	'Score in Final
1996	Rome	Thomas Muster	6-2, 6-4, 3-6, 6-3
1997	Stuttgart	Petr Korda	7-6, 6-2, 6-4
1998	Toronto	Patrick Rafter	7-6, 6-4
1999	Stuttgart	Thomas Enqvist	6-1, 6-4, 5-7, 7-5

Career finals

Singles

Wins (17)

'Legend' Grand Slam (1) Tennis Masters Cup (0) ATP Masters Series (2) ATP Tour (14)

'Titles by Surface' Hard (7) Clay (1) Grass (3) Carpet (6)

'No.	'Date	'Tournament	'Surface	'Opponent in the final'	'Score
1.	8 April, 1991	Hong Kong, P.R. China	Hard	Wally Masur	6-2, 3-6, 6-3
2.	10 August, 1992	Los Angeles, USA	Hard	Mark Woodforde	6-4, 2-6, 6-4
3.	16 November, 1992	Antwerp, Belgium	Carpet	Mark Woodforde	6-2, 6-2
4.	9 August, 1993	Los Angeles, USA	Hard	Michael Chang	0-6, 7-6(3), 7-6(5)
5.	11 April, 1994	Barcelona, Spain	Clay	Carlos Costa	6-4, 7-6(6), 6-2
6.	13 June, 1994	Rosmalen, Netherlands	Grass	Karsten Braasch	6-3, 6-4
7.	10 October, 1994	Sydney Indoor, Australia	Hard (i)	Boris Becker	7-6(5), 7-6(7), 2-6, 6-3
8.	27 February, 1995	Stuttgart Indoor, Germany	Carpet	Michael Stich	7-6(4), 6-3, 6-7(6), 1-6, 6-3
9.	6 March, 1995	Rotterdam, Netherlands	Carpet	Paul Haarhuis	7-6(5), 6-4
10.	8 July, 1996	Wimbledon, London, United Kingdom	Grass	MaliVai Washington	6-3, 6-4, 6-3
11.	10 March, 1997	Rotterdam, Netherlands	Carpet	Daniel Vacek	7-6(4), 7-6(5)
12.	21 April, 1997	Tokyo, Japan	Hard	Lionel Roux	6-2, 3-6, 6-1
13.	23 June, 1997	Rosmalen, Netherlands	Grass	Guillaume Raoux	6-4, 7-6(7)
14.	16 February, 1998	St. Petersburg, Russia	Carpet	Marc Rosset	6-4, 7-6(5)
15.	2 November, 1998	Stuttgart Indoor, Germany	Hard (i)	Yevgeny Kafelnikov	6-4, 6-3, 6-3
16.	1 March, 1999	London, United Kingdom	Carpet	Greg Rusedski	7-6(6), 6-7(5), 7-5
17.	29 March, 1999	Miami, USA	Hard	Sébastien Grosjean	4-6, 6-1, 6-2, 7-5

Runner-ups (9)

'No.	'Date	'Tournament	'Surface	'Opponent in the final'	'Score
1.	13 April, 1992	Tokyo Outdoor, Japan	Hard	Jim Courier	6-4, 6-4, 7-6(3)
2.	22 February, 1993	Stuttgart Indoor, Germany	Carpet	Michael Stich	4-6, 7-5, 7-6(4), 3-6, 7-5
3.	21 August, 1995	New Haven, USA	Hard	Andre Agassi	3-6, 7-6(2), 6-3
4.	20 May, 1996	Rome, Italy	Clay	Thomas Muster	6-2, 6-4, 3-6, 6-3
5.	5 August, 1996	Los Angeles, USA	Hard	Michael Chang	6-4, 6-3
6.	27 October, 1997	Stuttgart Indoor, Germany	Carpet	Petr Korda	7-6(6), 6-2, 6-4
7.	10 August, 1998	Toronto, Canada	Hard	Patrick Rafter	7-6(3), 6-4
8.	1 November, 1999	Stuttgart Indoor, Germany	Carpet	Thomas Enqvist	6-1, 6-4, 5-7, 7-5
9.	19 June, 2000	Halle, Germany	Grass	David Prinosil	6-3, 6-2

Bibliography

List of books written by Richard Krajicek:^[1]

★ ''Een half jaar netpost'' (2003) with Tino Bakker

★ ''Naar de top'' (2005)

★ ''Harde ballen'' (2005)

★ ''Honger naar de bal'' (2006)

★ ''Alle ballen verzamelen'' (2007)

References

1. Richard Krajicek

External links

★ Richard Krajicek Foundation

★ Krajicek Fanpage

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