Rainer Schüttler

Rainer Schüttler (born 25 April 1976) is a retired German professional tennis player. As of 2015, he is the most recent male German player to reach the singles final of a Grand Slam tournament, finishing as runner-up at the 2003 Australian Open. Schüttler also won a Silver medal in doubles at the 2004 Summer Olympics and achieved a career-high ranking of World No. 5 in April 2004.

Personal life

He began playing tennis at the age of nine. He resides in Switzerland.

Career

2003

In 2003, Schüttler became the first German since Boris Becker in 1989 to advance to the fourth round at all Grand Slams. He became the first German to reach a Grand Slam final, at the Australian Open, since Michael Stich was the runner-up at Roland Garros in 1996. En route to the final, which he lost in straight sets to Andre Agassi, he defeated Andy Roddick who would end the season as world no 1.

2004

In 2004, Schüttler reached his first career ATP Masters Series final in Monte Carlo by beating Gustavo Kuerten in the first round, Lleyton Hewitt in the third round, Tim Henman in the quarter-final and Carlos Moyá in the semi-final. He however lost to Guillermo Coria in the final. That week, he would reach a career high ranking of No. 5. Schüttler won a silver medal for Germany in tennis men's doubles with partner Nicolas Kiefer at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens. 2004 was the sixth straight year in, which he finished in the ATP top 50.

2008

In 2008, Schüttler reached his first career semi-final at Wimbledon by beating Santiago Ventura, James Blake, Guillermo García-López, Janko Tipsarević, and Arnaud Clément 6–3, 5–7, 7–6, 6–7, 8–6. His match with Clément was over 5 hours, completed in two days to reach the semi finals, and in which Schuettler saved a match point at 6–5 down in the fifth set. He was defeated by eventual champion Rafael Nadal 1–6, 6–7, 4–6. His achievement was a big surprise, since he entered the tournament ranked 94th and with a streak of 13 consecutive Grand Slam tournaments without making it past the second round.

2009

Schüttler started off his 2009 season at the Chennai Open, beating Prakash Amritraj 6–2, 4–6, 6–1. In the second round, he beat Simon Greul 6–4, 6–2, and in the quarter-finals, he defeated Björn Phau 6–2, 7–5. Unfortunately Schuettler had to withdraw from his semifinal match against Somdev Devvarman because of a wrist injury. He also withdrew from the tournament in Sydney. At the Australian Open, he was seeded 30th but lost in the first round to Dudi Sela 1–6, 6–2, 6–4, 6–4. He also participated in the doubles with Yen-Hsun Lu, but they were defeated by Łukasz Kubot and Oliver Marach. In the first round in Rotterdam, he lost to Mario Ančić. He played in the Open 13 in Marseille, defeating Laurent Recouderc in the first round 6–1, 6–4.

He competed at the ARAG World Team Cup in Germany, helping his country reach the final, where they lost to Serbia.

In the second round at Wimbledon, though seeded 18th he was upset by Israeli Dudi Sela 7–6, 6–3, 6–2.

Schüttler at the 2011 French Open

2010

He reached the second round of the 2010 Australian Open defeating Sam Querrey in four sets. However he lost to Feliciano López in four sets, too. At the 2010 French Open he again suffered a first round exit. This time against Guillermo García-López of Spain in straight sets. He reached the semifinal of the 2010 Aegon Championships at the Queens Club in London. He lost to Sam Querrey in three sets 7–6, 5–7, 3–6. Despite his good form he was defeated by Denis Istomin in the second round of Wimbledon in five sets. At the quarterfinal of the Countrywide Classic in Los Angeles Schüttler could not manage to close out the match against Sam Querrey despite serving for it at 5–4 and 6–5 in the deciding set. He was knocked out in the first round of the 2010 US Open after losing to Benoît Paire. At the PTT Thailand Open in Bangkok Schüttler beat Ricardo Mello in round one for a second round berth against Ernests Gulbis. He lost 6–7, 7–6, 4–6 in a close match. In 2010 Schüttler and his former Davis Cup companion Alexander Waske founded the Schüttler Waske Tennis-University, a tennis academy for professional tennis players.

2011

Schüttler started the tour at the 2011 Qatar ExxonMobil Open where he confronted Teymuraz Gabashvili in the singles, but lost 3–5, 6–7. He also played doubles with Guillermo García-López confronting Marco Chiudinelli and Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, to whom they lost 1–6 2–6.

At the 2011 Australian Open, he played ninth seed Fernando Verdasco in the first round, but lost 1–6, 3–6, 2–6. He then played several Challenger series tournaments.

At Wimbledon, he defeated Thomaz Bellucci in the first round, but lost to Feliciano López in the second 6–7, 7–6, 2–6, 2–6.

Retirement

Schüttler retired in October 2012 and now coaches Sergiy Stakhovsky.

Major finals

Grand Slam finals

Singles: 1 (0–1)

Outcome	Year	Championship	Surface	Opponent	Score
Runner-up	2003	Australian Open	Hard	Andre Agassi	2–6, 2–6, 1–6

Olympic finals

Doubles: 1 (1 silver medal)

Outcome	Year	Championship	Surface	Partner	Opponents	Score
Silver	2004	Athens Olympics	Hard	Nicolas Kiefer	Fernando González Nicolás Massú	2–6, 6–4, 6–3, 6–7^(7–9), 4–6

Masters Series finals

Singles: 1 (0–1)

Outcome	Year	Championship	Surface	Opponent	Score
Runner-up	2004	Monte Carlo	Clay	Guillermo Coria	2–6, 1–6, 3–6

Career finals

Singles: 12 (4 titles – 8 runners-up)

Legend (Singles)
Grand Slam (0)
Tennis Masters Cup (0)
ATP Masters Series (0)
ATP International Series Gold (1)
ATP Tour (3)

Outcome	No.	Date	Tournament	Surface	Opponent in final	Score in final
Winner	1.	4 January 1999	Doha, Qatar	Hard	Tim Henman	6–4, 5–7, 6–1
Runner-up	1.	5 April 1999	Chennai, India	Hard	Byron Black	4–6, 6–1, 3–6
Runner-up	2.	3 January 2000	Doha, Qatar	Hard	Fabrice Santoro	6–3, 5–7, 0–3 ret.
Winner	2.	17 September 2001	Shanghai, China	Hard	Michel Kratochvil	6–3, 6–4
Runner-up	3.	24 September 2001	Hong Kong, China	Hard	Marcelo Ríos	6–7^(3–7), 2–6
Runner-up	4.	22 October 2001	St. Petersburg, Russia	Hard (i)	Marat Safin	6–3, 3–6, 3–6
Runner-up	5.	29 April 2002	Munich, Germany	Clay	Younes El Aynaoui	4–6, 4–6
Runner-up	6.	13 January 2003	Australian Open, Melbourne	Hard	Andre Agassi	2–6, 2–6, 1–6
Runner-up	7.	8 September 2003	Costa do Sauipe, Brazil	Hard	Sjeng Schalken	2–6, 4–6
Winner	3.	29 September 2003	Tokyo, Japan	Hard	Sébastien Grosjean	7–6^(7–5), 6–2
Winner	4.	6 October 2003	Lyon, France	Carpet (i)	Arnaud Clément	7–5, 6–3
Runner-up	8.	19 April 2004	Monte Carlo, Monaco	Clay	Guillermo Coria	2–6, 1–6, 3–6

Doubles: 7 (4–3)

Wins (4)

No.	Date	Tournament	Surface	Partner	Opponent	Score
1.	16 July 2001	Stuttgart, Germany	Clay	Guillermo Cañas	Michael Hill Jeff Tarango	4–6, 7–6^(7–1), 6–4
2.	3 January 2005	Chennai, India	Hard	Lu Yen-hsun	Mahesh Bhupathi Jonas Björkman	7–5, 4–6, 7–6^(7–4)
3.	14 April 2008	Houston, United States	Clay	Ernests Gulbis	Pablo Cuevas Marcel Granollers Pujol	7–5, 7–6^(7–3)
4.	4 May 2008	Munich, Germany	Clay	Michael Berrer	Scott Lipsky David Martin	7–5, 3–6, [10–8]

Runners-up (3)

No.	Date	Tournament	Surface	Partner	Opponents	Score
1.	20 October 2003	St. Petersburg, Russia	Hard (i)	Michael Kohlmann	Julian Knowle Nenad Zimonjić	6–7^(1–7), 3–6
2.	15 August 2004	Summer Olympics, Athens, Greece	Hard	Nicolas Kiefer	Fernando González Nicolás Massú	2–6, 6–4, 6–3, 6–7^(7–9), 4–6
3.	4 July 2005	Gstaad, Switzerland	Clay	Michael Kohlmann	František Čermák Leoš Friedl	6–7^(6–8), 6–7^(11–13)

Performance timeline

Tournament	1995	1996	1997	1998	1999	2000	2001	2002	2003	2004	2005	2006	2007	2008	2009	2010	2011	2012	W–L
Australian Open		LQ	LQ	LQ	1R	2R	4R	3R	F*	1R	2R	1R	1R	2R	1R	2R	1R	LQ	14–13
French Open			LQ	LQ	1R	1R	1R	2R	4R	1R	1R	1R	LQ	1R	1R	1R	1R		4–12
Wimbledon		LQ	LQ	1R	2R	3R	2R	3R	4R	3R	1R	1R		SF	2R	2R	2R		19–13
US Open			LQ	LQ	1R	3R	2R	1R	4R	1R	2R	1R	1R	1R	1R	1R			7–12
Win–Loss	0–0	0–0	0–0	0–1	1–4	5–4	5–4	5–4	14–4	2–4	2–4	0–4	0–2	6–4	1–4	2–4	1–3	0–0	44–50
Masters Cup	Did Not Qualify								SF	Did Not Qualify									2–2
Indian Wells Masters							1R	QF	SF	2R	2R	2R	1R	1R	2R	2R	2R		11–11
Miami Masters		LQ	LQ		1R	1R	2R	1R	2R	2R	2R	LQ	LQ	1R	3R	1R	2R		5–11
Monte Carlo Masters						1R	1R	1R	2R	F	1R				1R				6–7
Rome Masters				LQ			1R	1R	QF	1R	1R								3–5
Madrid Masters		LQ		LQ				1R	1R	2R				1R	1R				0–5
Canada Masters					1R			1R	SF	1R					2R				5–5
Cincinnati Masters					3R			QF	SF	1R					LQ				9–4
Shanghai Masters	Not ATP Masters Series														3R				2–1
Paris Masters					1R			1R	QF	1R				1R					2–5
Hamburg Masters	LQ		LQ	LQ	3R	2R	1R	2R	3R	1R	1R	2R	1R	1R	NMS				7–10
Summer Olympics	NH		Not Held			2R	Not Held			1R	Not Held			2R	Not Held				2–3
Titles	0	0	0	0	1	0	1	0	2	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	4
Year-end ranking	446	332	117	109	47	45	43	33	6	42	88	97	99	33	85	84	132	855	–

* Third-round match at the 2003 Australian Open was a walkover (so does not count as a win)

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Rainer Schüttler.

Official website (German)
Rainer Schüttler at the Association of Tennis Professionals
Rainer Schüttler at the International Tennis Federation
Rainer Schüttler at the Davis Cup
Schüttler World Ranking history

Awards and achievements
Preceded by Paradorn Srichaphan	ATP Most Improved Player 2003	Succeeded by Joachim Johansson
Preceded by Igor Andreev	ATP Comeback Player of the Year 2008	Succeeded by Marco Chiudinelli

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