Nicolas Kiefer (German pronunciation:[ˈkiːfɐ];[1][2] born 5 July 1977) is a German former professional tennis player. He reached the semifinals of the 2006 Australian Open and won a silver medal in men's doubles with partner Rainer Schüttler at the 2004 Athens Olympics. Kiefer's career-high singles ranking was world No. 4, achieved in January 2000.
Tennis career
1995–2005
Kiefer was taken notice of as an outstanding junior. He won the Junior Australian Open, the US Open, and was a finalist and semifinalist at Wimbledon and the French Open finishing as the No. 2 junior behind Mariano Zabaleta when he was 18 in 1995. On 10 January 2000, he reached his second quarterfinal at the Australian Open and afterwards was ranked world No. 4, his highest position.
Kiefer was known to have some tennis superstitions. He was sometimes seen tapping his racquet on the corners of the court after a point,[3] and, when serving, frequently asked for the ball with which he had just won a point to re-use it for the next one.
2006–2007
Kiefer became infamous for an incident on 25 January 2006, during the quarterfinals of the Australian Open. While facing Sébastien Grosjean late in the fifth set of a marathon match, Kiefer threw his racquet midpoint. Grosjean lost the point, hitting the ball into the net. Grosjean protested that the racquet distracted his shot. The umpire Carlos Bernardes said he did not believe the act was intentional and noted Grosjean had already hit the ball before the flying racquet could have had any effect on his shot. Grosjean eventually lost the fifth and final set to Kiefer. Kiefer went through to the semi-finals where he was defeated by the 2004 champion Roger Federer.
Kiefer injured his wrist while playing at the 2006 French Open, and announced his return on 5 July 2007, having fallen to the 404th position on ATP. He announced that he was "tired of waiting and anxious to start traveling again and to see his name on scoreboards". Kiefer returned at the 2007 Gerry Weber Open, losing in the first round to eventual champion Tomáš Berdych. At Wimbledon, he made the third round after defeating No.30 seed Filippo Volandri and Fabrice Santoro, both in straight sets, before losing in 4 sets (3 of which were tiebreakers) to Novak Djokovic. At Newport, however, he ended up losing in round 1. At Los Angeles, he reached the semifinals in only his 4th tournament since coming back from injury; he had to default against Radek Štěpánek, another player coming back from injury, because of an injury sustained during his quarter-final win. He also made an impressive showing at the 2007 Madrid Masters, where he beat number five seed Fernando González in the quarterfinals before losing in the semifinals to world number one Roger Federer 6–4, 6–4.
In 2009, he represented Germany in the 2009 Hopman Cup with 19-year-old Sabine Lisicki. In the first match, he lost against Australia's Lleyton Hewitt, who had been six months inactive due to an injury. In the second singles match, Kiefer lost again, this time to USA's James Blake. Nevertheless, Kiefer won both of the doubles matches with Sabine Lisicki against both Australia and the United States. In the third singles match, Kiefer twisted his ankle against Slovakia's Dominik Hrbatý in the first set when Kiefer was up 3–1 and serving. This injury prevented him from participating in the 2009 Australian Open.
Kiefer then participated at the 2009 French Open in which he beat qualifier Ilija Bozoljac in four sets. However, Kiefer lost in the second round against world No. 14 David Ferrer in five sets. Despite this loss, Kiefer claimed that he was proud that he had played up to a fifth set against one of the best tennis players of the world on clay, since clay is Kiefer's least favourite surface.
The clay season had now ended, and the grass season started with Kiefer's participation in his favourite tournament, the 2009 Gerry Weber Open. In the first match, he thrashed Viktor Troicki, but retired in the second round against Jürgen Melzer when he was down 1–6 with a muscular strain in his abdomen which forced him to retire from singles and doubles, where he had reached the semifinals with Mischa Zverev.
Kiefer participated in the Wimbledon as the 33rd seed but having not fully recovered from his abdomen injury. This was reflected in his match against Fabrice Santoro, where Kiefer lost in straight sets. Kiefer then played for Germany in the 2009 Davis Cup quarterfinals against Spain. He did so in the doubles match with Mischa Zverev against Spain's Fernando Verdasco and Feliciano López. Kiefer and Zverev lost the match. In the first round of the U.S. Open, he beat Michaël Llodra in straight sets, but in the second round he lost to world No. 3 Rafael Nadal.
^Dudenredaktion; Kleiner, Stefan; Knöbl, Ralf (2015) [First published 1962]. Das Aussprachewörterbuch [The Pronunciation Dictionary] (in German) (7th ed.). Berlin: Dudenverlag. p. 506. ISBN978-3-411-04067-4.
^Krech, Eva-Maria; Stock, Eberhard; Hirschfeld, Ursula; Anders, Lutz Christian (2009). Deutsches Aussprachewörterbuch [German Pronunciation Dictionary] (in German). Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. p. 648. ISBN978-3-11-018202-6.
^"Strange Habits of Highly Successful Tennis Players" by Christopher Clarey, 21 June 2008 in The New York Times.