Alex Kim (tennis)

Medal record
Men's tennis
Representing United States
Pan American Games

Alex Kim
Country (sports)	United States
Residence	Delray Beach, Florida
Born	December 20, 1978 (age 40); Silver Spring, Maryland ; United States
Height	5 ft 9 in (175 cm)
Turned pro	2000
Plays	Right-handed
Prize money	$281,041
Singles
Career record	8–26
Career titles	0
Highest ranking	No. 106 (June 10, 2002)
Grand Slam Singles results
Australian Open	3R (2002)
French Open	1R (2003)
US Open	1R (2000, 2002, 2003)
Doubles
Career record	0–5
Career titles	0
Highest ranking	No. 264 (October 20, 2003)
Grand Slam Doubles results
US Open	1R (2002, 2003)

Last updated November 02, 2019

Alex Kim (born December 20, 1978) is a professional tennis player from the United States.^[1]

Tennis is a racket sport that can be played individually against a single opponent (singles) or between two teams of two players each (doubles). Each player uses a tennis racket that is strung with cord to strike a hollow rubber ball covered with felt over or around a net and into the opponent's court. The object of the game is to maneuver the ball in such a way that the opponent is not able to play a valid return. The player who is unable to return the ball will not gain a point, while the opposite player will.

The United States of America (USA), commonly known as the United States or America, is a country comprising 50 states, a federal district, five major self-governing territories, and various possessions. At 3.8 million square miles, the United States is the world's third or fourth largest country by total area and is slightly smaller than the entire continent of Europe. With a population of over 327 million people, the U.S. is the third most populous country. The capital is Washington, D.C., and the most populous city is New York City. Most of the country is located contiguously in North America between Canada and Mexico.

Early career

In the 1996 US Open, Kim and Mexico's Mariano Sánchez made the boys' doubles semi-finals, where they lost to the Bryan brothers.^[2]

The 1996 US Open was a tennis tournament played on outdoor hard courts at the USTA National Tennis Center in New York City in New York in the United States. It was the 116th edition of the US Open and was held from August 26 through September 8, 1996.

Mariano Sánchez is a former professional tennis player from Mexico.

The Bryan Brothers are identical twin brothers Robert Charles "Bob" Bryan and Michael Carl "Mike" Bryan, American professional doubles tennis players, and are the most successful duo of all time. They were born on April 29, 1978, with Mike being the elder by two minutes. The Bryans have won multiple Olympic medals, including the gold in 2012 and have won more professional games, matches, tournaments and Grand Slams than any other men's pairing. They held the World No. 1 doubles ranking jointly for 438 weeks, which is longer than anyone else in doubles history, and have also enjoyed that World No. 1 ranking together for a record 139 consecutive weeks. They have finished as the ATP year-end number 1 doubles team a record 10 times. Between 2005 and 2006, they set an Open Era record by competing in seven consecutive men's doubles Grand Slam finals.

He began playing collegiate tennis in 1998, for Stanford University.^[3] The American was a member of the championship winning Stanford sides of 1998 and 2000.^[3] In the latter year, he also won the NCAA Division 1 singles title and was an All-American.^[3] He and teammate Geoff Abrams formed the top-ranked doubles team in the nation in 2000, and were named the ITA National Doubles Team of the Year.^[4] He was inducted into the Stanford Athletic Hall of Fame in 2011.^[5]

The Stanford Cardinal are the athletic teams that represent Stanford University. Stanford's program has won 123 NCAA team championships, as well as 25 consecutive NACDA Directors' Cups, awarded annually to the most successful overall college sports program in the nation. As of February 15, 2019, Stanford-affiliated athletes have won 270 Olympic medals. Stanford's teams compete at the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I level as a member of the Pac-12 Conference, along with other schools from the western third of the United States.

The NCAA Men's Tennis Championships are separate tournaments held to crown team, individual, and doubles champion in American college tennis. The first intercollegiate championship was held in 1883, 23 years before the founding of the NCAA, with Harvard's Joseph Clark taking the singles title. The same year Clark partnered to Howard Taylor to win the doubles title.

Geoff Abrams is an American former tennis player.

ATP Tour

Given a wildcard entry, Kim made his first Grand Slam appearance in 2000, at the US Open.^[3] He had the misfortune of being drawn against world number one Andre Agassi in the first round and lost in straight sets.^[3] In June 2000, he won the doubles title with Geoff Abrams at the USTA Chandler Cup Futures.^[6]

The Grand Slam tournaments, also called majors, are the four most important annual tennis events. They offer the most ranking points, prize money, public and media attention, the greatest strength and size of field, and greater number of "best of" sets for men, which is 5. The Grand Slam itinerary consists of the Australian Open in mid January, the French Open around late May through early June, Wimbledon in June–July, and the US Open in August–September. Each tournament is played over a two-week period. The Australian and United States tournaments are played on hard courts, the French on clay, and Wimbledon on grass. Wimbledon is the oldest, founded in 1877, followed by the US in 1881, the French in 1891, and the Australian in 1905. However, of these four, only Wimbledon was a major before 1924–25, when all four became designated Grand Slam tournaments. Skipping majors—especially the Australian Open because of the remoteness, the inconvenient dates and the low prize money—was not unusual before 1982.

The 2000 US Open was held between August 28 – September 10, 2000. It was the final Grand Slam event of 2000.

Andre Kirk Agassi is an American retired professional tennis player and former world No. 1 whose career spanned from the late 1980s to the early 2000s. In singles, Agassi is an eight-time Grand Slam champion and a 1996 Olympic gold medalist, as well as being a runner-up in seven other Grand Slam tournaments. During the Open Era, Agassi was the first male player to win four Australian Open titles, a record that was later surpassed by Novak Djokovic when he won his fifth title in 2015, and then by Roger Federer in 2017. Agassi is one of five male singles players to achieve the Career Grand Slam in the Open Era and one of eight in history, the first of two to achieve the Career Golden Slam, and the only man to win the Career Golden Slam and the ATP Tour World Championships: a distinction dubbed as a "Career Super Slam" by Sports Illustrated.

The next time that he played in a Grand Slam event, the 2002 Australian Open, he put in the best performance of his career, starting with an opening round win over Davide Sanguinetti.^[3] Despite being ranked outside of the world's top 200, Kim managed to defeat fourth seed Yevgeny Kafelnikov in the second round, without dropping a set.^[7] In the third round, he was eliminated by the only other qualifier remaining in the draw, Fernando Gonzalez.^[3]

The 2002 Australian Open was a tennis tournament played on outdoor hard courts at Melbourne Park in Melbourne in Australia. It was the 90th edition of the Australian Open and was held from 14 through 27 January 2002 and attracted an attendance of 518,248.

Davide Sanguinetti is an Italian former professional male tennis player.

Yevgeny Aleksandrovich Kafelnikov is a Russian former world No. 1 tennis player. He won two Grand Slam singles titles, the 1996 French Open and the 1999 Australian Open. He also won four Grand Slam doubles titles, being the last man to have won both the men's singles and doubles titles at the same Grand Slam tournament, which he did at the 1996 French Open.

He also played at the US Open in 2002, but lost in the first round to Greg Rusedski.^[3] In Washington's Legg Mason Tennis Classic that year, he claimed a win over another big name player, 10th seed Todd Martin.^[3] He was unable to get past Jarkko Nieminen in the round of 16.^[3]

The United States Open Tennis Championships is a hard court tennis tournament. The tournament is the modern version of one of the oldest tennis championships in the world, the U.S. National Championship, for which men's singles and men's doubles were first played in 1881.

Gregory Rusedski is a British and Canadian former tennis player. He was the British No. 1 in 1997, 1999 and 2006, and reached the ATP ranking of world No. 4 for periods from 6 October 1997 to 12 October 1997 and from 25 May 1998 to 21 June 1998.

The 2002 Legg Mason Tennis Classic was a tennis tournament played on outdoor hard courts at the William H.G. FitzGerald Tennis Center in Washington, D.C. in the United States and was part of the International Series Gold of the 2002 ATP Tour. The tournament ran from August 12 through August 18, 2002.

In 2003, he played in three Grand Slam tournaments, but lost in the opening round of each.^[3] He was beaten by Scott Draper in the Australian Open, squandered a two set lead in losing to Mark Philippoussis in the French Open and was defeated by Younes El Aynaoui in the US Open.^[3]

Kim was a joint bronze medalist in the men's singles event at the 2003 Pan American Games, which were held in the Dominican Republic. He lost in the semi-finals to Marcelo Rios, in a match decided by two tiebreaks.^[8]

As a doubles player, Kim competed in the 2002 US Open with Kevin Kim (who is of no relation) and with Jeff Salzenstein in the 2003 US Open.^[3] He and his partner lost in the first round of each.^[3]

Challenger titles

Singles: (3)

No.	Year	Tournament	Surface	Opponent in the final	Score in the final
1.	2001	Kerrville, United States	Hard	Mardy Fish	6–3, 3–6, 6–4
2.	2002	Birmingham, United States	Clay	Cecil Mamiit	7–6^(11–9), 6–2
3.	2003	Fresno, United States	Hard	Jeff Morrison	7–5, 7–6^(8–6)

Doubles: (1)

No.	Year	Tournament	Surface	Partner	Opponents in the final	Score in the final
1.	2003	Seoul, South Korea	Hard	Hyung-Taik Lee	Alex Bogomolov, Jr. Jeff Salzenstein	1–6, 6–1, 6–4

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References

↑ ITF Pro Circuit Profile
↑ ITF Junior Profile
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 ATP World Tour Profile
↑ "Cunha, Hemmeler Named ITA Doubles Team of the Year". GoDuke.com. Retrieved November 13, 2013.
↑ "Alex Kim". Stanford Athletic Hall of Fame. March 19, 2012. Archived from the original on January 24, 2013.
↑ Dasher, Anthony (May 19, 2001). "Soft-spoken standout". Online Athens. Retrieved November 13, 2013.
↑ The Guardian , "Kafelnikov confounded by scattered seeds", January 16, 2002
↑ "Marcelo Ríos va por el oro en Santo Domingo" [Marcelo Ríos is going for the gold at Santo Domingo] (in Spanish). Santo Domingo: El Mercurio. August 9, 2003. Retrieved November 1, 2019.

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[1] ITF Pro Circuit Profile

[2] ITF Junior Profile

[ATP-3] 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 ATP World Tour Profile

[4] "Cunha, Hemmeler Named ITA Doubles Team of the Year". GoDuke.com. Retrieved November 13, 2013.

[5] "Alex Kim". Stanford Athletic Hall of Fame. March 19, 2012. Archived from the original on January 24, 2013.

[6] Dasher, Anthony (May 19, 2001). "Soft-spoken standout". Online Athens. Retrieved November 13, 2013.

[7] The Guardian , "Kafelnikov confounded by scattered seeds", January 16, 2002

[8] "Marcelo Ríos va por el oro en Santo Domingo" [Marcelo Ríos is going for the gold at Santo Domingo] (in Spanish). Santo Domingo: El Mercurio. August 9, 2003. Retrieved November 1, 2019.