Brian Baker

Brian Richard Baker (born April 30, 1985) is an American former professional tennis player. He was ranked as high as world No. 52 in singles and No. 29 in doubles by the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP).

Juniors As a junior player, Baker won the 2002 edition of prestigious Orange Bowl. In 2003, he reached the boys' singles final of the French Open after beating Marcos Baghdatis in the quarterfinals and Jo-Wilfried Tsonga in the semifinals. In the final, he lost to Stan Wawrinka. Baker reached No. 2 in singles and No. 5 in doubles in the junior world rankings.

Professional career

Early years Baker's biggest win of his fledgling career occurred in August 2005, when he scored an upset victory over ninth-seeded Gastón Gaudio in the 2005 US Open. The victory was Baker's first Grand Slam win. He won one Challenger event in singles (and three in doubles) during this time and reached a career-best singles ranking of world No. 172 on November 15, 2004. He was coached by Ricardo Acuña.

In 2007, he was sidelined for nearly six years after five surgeries—three on his hip, one on his elbow, and one sports hernia—and did not play on the tour again until 2011.

Return to professional tennis While coaching tennis at Belmont University, Baker began to feel his body gradually improving and decided to try again to make it as a professional tennis player in the summer of 2011. He subsequently entered an ITF Futures tournament in Pittsburgh in July 2011 as an unranked qualifier, qualified, and won the tournament, all without dropping a set. In September, he entered the Canadian Futures 7 and reached the semifinals, again without dropping a set. He lost in a walkover to Jesse Levine. Two months later, in November 2011, Baker entered the 2011 Knoxville Challenger, and qualified for the tournament after straight-set victories over Jordan Cox, Tim Smyczek and Michael McClune. He went on to win his next four matches, before losing to Jesse Levine in the final. The statement was in reference to the USA F17 tournament that Baker went on to win.

Shortly before the French Open, he qualified for the 2012 Open de Nice Côte d'Azur in May, beating Ilija Bozoljac, David Guez, and Alejandro González in the qualification rounds, all in straight sets. Hard-fought wins over Mikhail Kukushkin and Nikolay Davydenko took Baker to his first ATP final on a 15-match winning streak going into the match. He ultimately lost to Nicolás Almagro, the repeat champion, in the final. After his surprising performance, he reached his highest singles ranking at No. 141.

Just two days after the final in Nice, Baker headed to Paris for the French Open. He beat Xavier Malisse in straight sets in the first round, before losing to Gilles Simon in the second round in five sets. Despite the defeat, Baker's appearance in the tournament was described as "one of the most remarkable comebacks of modern times." In his third-round match, he beat Frenchman Benoît Paire in four sets. Baker bowed out of the competition in the fourth round, losing in straight sets to Philipp Kohlschreiber. On his performance at Wimbledon, Baker stated - "It's been an unbelievable run. I don't know if I put an expectation like I need to get to this round or not. But I don't know if starting first round qualifiers I would have thought I would have got to the fourth round of Wimbledon".

In the second round of the Australian Open, Baker led 20th seed Sam Querrey 7–6(2), 1–1 before a knee injury forced him to retire. This was later diagnosed as a torn meniscus, which put Baker off the tour for about four months.

Baker made his return in Aptos. losing to Guido Pella. He then lost to Grigor Dimitrov in the second round of the Cincinnati Masters. At the U.S Open he was defeated by Lleyton Hewitt in the first round.

He ended 2013 ranked world No. 359.

2014 Baker withdrew from the 2014 Australian Open, citing a knee injury.

2015–2017 He was granted a wild card into the main draw of the 2016 Australian Open after a nearly three-year injury layoff.

In August 2016, he lost in the Round of 16 of the Tennis at the 2016 Summer Olympics – Men's doubles partnering with Rajeev Ram. They faced off against the Austrian team of Oliver Marach and Alexander Peya.

In February 2017, he won his maiden ATP Tour title at the Memphis Open in doubles partnering Nikola Mektić. They faced off against compatriots Ryan Harrison and Steve Johnson in the final. He won his second doubles title in Budapest in April, again partnering with Mektić.

2018 Baker underwent his 14th major surgery on December 21, 2018 (back), delaying his comeback.

Personal life Baker was as an assistant coach for the Belmont University men's tennis program for four years. He studied toward business and finance degrees at the university.

ATP Tour finals

Singles: 1 (runner-up)

Doubles: 2 (2 titles)

ATP Challenger and ITF Tour finals

Singles: 10 (6 titles, 4 runner-ups) LegendATP Challenger Tour (2–2)ITF Futures (4–2)Finals by surfaceHard (3–3)Clay (3–1)

Doubles: 15 (11 titles, 4 runner-ups) LegendATP Challenger Tour (8–2)ITF Futures (3–2)Finals by surfaceHard (10–4)Clay (1–0)

Junior Grand Slam finals

Singles: 1 (runner-up)

Doubles: 2 (2 runner-ups)

Performance timelines

Singles

Doubles

Wins over top-10 players Baker's match record against players who were, at the time the match was played, ranked in the top 10.