Nicolás Massú

Nicolás Massú

Country	Chile
Residence	Viña del Mar
Born	October 10, 1979 (1979-10-10) Viña del Mar
Height	1.83 m (6 ft 0 in)
Weight	80 kg (180 lb; 13 st)
Turned pro	1997
Plays	Right-handed (two-handed backhand)
Career prize money	US$4,286,614
Singles
Career record	257–233 (at ATP Tour level, Grand Slam level, and in Davis Cup)
Career titles	6
Highest ranking	No. 9 (September 13, 2004)
Current ranking	No. 448 (June 20, 2011)
Grand Slam results
Australian Open	2nd Round (2005)
French Open	3rd Round (2004, 2006)
Wimbledon	3rd Round (2001)
US Open	4th Round (2005)
Other tournaments
Olympic Games	Gold medal (2004)
Doubles
Career record	81–98 (at ATP Tour level and Grand Slam level, and in Davis Cup)
Career titles	1
Highest ranking	No. 31 (July 25, 2005)
Other Doubles tournaments
Olympic Games	Gold medal (2004)
Last updated on: January 17, 2011.

Olympic medal record
Competitor for Chile
Men's Tennis
Gold	2004 Athens	Singles
Gold	2004 Athens	Doubles

This name uses Spanish naming customs; the first or paternal family name is Massú and the second or maternal family name is Fried.

Nicolás Alejandro Massú Fried (born October 10, 1979, in Viña del Mar, Chile), nicknamed Vampiro (Spanish: "vampire"), is a Chilean tennis player, a former world number nine in singles, and a two-time Olympic gold medalist. He is the only male player to have won both the singles and doubles gold medals in the same Olympic Games in modern (1988 ff.) Olympic tennis.

Tennis career

Early years

Massú was introduced to tennis at age five by his Hungarian grandfather, Ladislao Fried. From age 12, he was trained at the Valle Dorado tennis academy, near Villa Alemana, by Leonardo Zuleta, with whom he perfected his forehand and double-handed backhand. He later trained at the Nick Bollettieri academy, in Florida, United States, alongside Marcelo Ríos, and later at the High Performance Center in Barcelona, Spain.

Juniors

Massú became a professional tennis player in 1997. That year he won the prestigious juniors year-end Orange Bowl tournament. He also claimed the boys doubles competitions at Wimbledon (with Peru's Luis Horna) and the US Open (with countryman Fernando González), and was junior doubles world champion.

ATP Tour

In August 1998, Massú won his first future tournament, in Spain. The following month he claimed his first challenger event, in Ecuador. He won his second challenger tournament in June 1999, in Italy. In September 1999, he successfully defended his title in Ecuador. In November 1999, he won the Santiago challenger event, and cracked the top 100 in singles for the first time.

In May 2000, Massú reached his first ATP tournament final, at the U.S. Men's Clay Court Championships in Orlando, Florida, where he lost to Fernando González. Later in August, he lost again to another Chilean—Marcelo Ríos—on his US Open debut. In January 2001, Massú reached his second ATP event final, in Adelaide, Australia.

Massú's first ATP title came in February 2002 in Buenos Aires, where he defeated Argentine Agustín Calleri in a three-set final, after being down match point. At the 2003 event, Calleri took revenge and defeated him in the first round, a loss that pushed Massú out of the top 100 in singles and forced him to play challengers once again. In April 2003, he reached the Bermuda challenger final.

Massú claimed his second ATP title in July 2003 in Amersfoort, The Netherlands. The following week he reached the final of the Kitzbühel, Austria tournament, cracking the top 50 in singles for the first time. In September he made three consecutive tournament finals, including a win at a challenger event and his third ATP title at Palermo, Italy. In October, he reached the final at the Madrid Tennis Masters Series tournament, losing to Spaniard Juan Carlos Ferrero in the final. He ended the year at number 12.

In mid-2004, Massú parted ways with Argentine coach Gabriel Markus, whom he replaced with Chilean Patricio Rodríguez. In July 2004 Massú won his fourth ATP title in Kitzbühel, and then went on to win two gold medals at the Athens Olympics in August (see below). Thanks to his outstanding performance at the Olympics, he reached his best ATP Singles Ranking to date, at number 9. In November he underwent groin surgery, and therefore entered the 2005 season off top form. He ended an unremarkable 2005 with a six-match losing streak.

In January 2006, Massú lost his hometown event at Viña del Mar to José Acasuso in the final. In February he won his sixth ATP event at Costa do Sauipe, Brazil. In April he reached the final of the Casablanca event in Morocco. In July he lost to Novak Djokovic in the final of the Amersfoort tournament.

In January 2007, Massú repeated his Viña del Mar showing of 2006, losing to Luis Horna in straight sets. In July he began an eight-match losing streak, ended in October in Saint Petersburg.

Massú had an early exit at the Viña del Mar tournament in January, 2008, losing to Sergio Roitman in the first round. Because he defended points from a final showing in 2007, the following week he fell to number 97 in the world. In July his singles ranking plummeted to #138, his worst since November 1999. Later in the year he won the Florianópolis II challenger event and was finalist in two other tournaments of this level.

Massú began 2009 by not winning a match during his first five tournaments, and losing his opening Davis Cup singles match against Croatia in March. He broke his losing streak at the Indian Wells Masters, beating Argentine Eduardo Schwank in three sets in the first round.

Olympics

Massú has represented Chile in three Summer Olympics: Sydney 2000, Athens 2004 and Beijing 2008. At the 2000 event's opening ceremony, he was his country's standard bearer, after Marcelo Ríos failed to show up. On his first-round match he beat Slava Doseděl, but lost to Juan Carlos Ferrero in the next round.

The story was different in Athens, where Massú captured both singles and doubles titles. On August 21, he and partner Fernando González, defeated Nicolas Kiefer and Rainer Schüttler of Germany to win the doubles competition, making history by giving Chile its first-ever Olympic gold medal. The following day, he captured his second gold medal by defeating American Mardy Fish in five sets in the men's singles final. Following his victory in singles he was declared as Athlete of the Day by the 2004 Athens Olympics' organization.

"I was so happy because this is my best memory in my sport career. If I look back in 10 more years, I look back on this, I'm gonna be so happy. Now I can die happy."

Because of his low ranking, Massú was granted a wild card to compete in both singles and doubles events in Beijing. He only managed to reach the second round in singles and was ousted on his first match in doubles, where he partnered with Fernando González.

Davis Cup

Massú began playing for Chile in Davis Cup matches in 1996. He currently is 29–17, including 17–4 on clay.

Maccabiah Games

Massú is a veteran of the 2001 Maccabiah Games, the international Jewish Olympics.

Playing style

Massú has a style characteristic of a clay court specialist, with strong baseline play characterized by a solid forehand and backhand.

Massú is known for his fighting spirit, especially when playing for Chile, as he has demonstrated at the 2004 Olympics and at numerous Davis Cup matches. He has also turned around difficult matches.

Personal life

Massú is Jewish, as is his mother, Sonia Fried. His father, Manuel Massú, is of Palestinian ancestry. He has four brothers, Stefano, Jorge, Geza and Yuri.

Nicolás Massú in Kitzbühel 2005

At the 2006 Australian Open

All finals

Legend Grand Slam (0) ATP World Tour Finals (0) Olympic Gold (1) ATP Masters Series (0) ATP International Series Gold (1) ATP Tour (4)

Titles by Surface Hard (1) Clay (5) Grass (0) Carpet (0)

Singles titles

No.	Date	Tournament	Surface	Opponent in Final	Score in Final
1.	February 24, 2002	Buenos Aires, Argentina	Clay	Agustín Calleri	2–6, 7–6(5), 6–2
2.	July 20, 2003	Amersfoort, Netherlands	Clay	Raemon Sluiter	6–4, 7–6(3), 6–2
3.	September 28, 2003	Palermo, Italy	Clay	Paul-Henri Mathieu	1–6, 6–2, 7–6(0)
4.	July 25, 2004	Kitzbühel, Austria	Clay	Gastón Gaudio	7–6(3), 6–4
5.	August 22, 2004	Athens 2004 Summer Olympics	Hard	Mardy Fish	6–3, 3–6, 2–6, 6–3, 6–4
6.	February 26, 2006	Costa do Sauípe, Brazil	Clay	Alberto Martín	6–3, 6–4

Singles runners-up

No.	Date	Tournament	Surface	Opponent in the final	Score
1.	May 7, 2000	Orlando, U.S.	Clay	Fernando González	2–6, 3–6
2.	January 7, 2001	Adelaide, Australia	Hard	Tommy Haas	3–6, 1–6
3.	July 27, 2003	Kitzbühel, Austria	Clay	Guillermo Coria	1–6, 4–6, 2–6
4.	September 14, 2003	Bucharest, Romania	Clay	David Sánchez	2–6, 2–6
5.	October 19, 2003	Madrid, Spain	Hard (i)	Juan Carlos Ferrero	3–6, 4–6, 3–6
6.	February 5, 2006	Viña del Mar, Chile	Clay	José Acasuso	4–6, 3–6
7.	April 30, 2006	Casablanca, Morocco	Clay	Daniele Bracciali	1–6, 4–6
8.	July 23, 2006	Amersfoort, Netherlands	Clay	Novak Djokovic	6–7(5), 4–6
9.	February 4, 2007	Viña del Mar, Chile	Clay	Luis Horna	5–7, 3–6

Doubles titles

No.	Date	Tournament	Surface	Partnering	Opponents in the final	Score
1.	August 21, 2004	Athens 2004 Summer Olympics	Hard	Fernando González	Nicolas Kiefer Rainer Schüttler	6–2, 4–6, 3–6, 7–6(7), 6–4

Team competition wins

• 2003 – World Team Championship, Düsseldorf, Germany (Clay)
• 2004 – World Team Championship, Düsseldorf, Germany (Clay)

Challenger singles titles

No.	Date	Tournament	Surface	Opponent in the final	Score
1.	September 7, 1998	Quito, Ecuador	Clay	Mariano Sánchez	3–6, 6–3, 6–0
2.	June 21, 1999	Biella, Italy	Clay	Oleg Ogorodov	7–6(5), 5–7, 6–3
3.	September 6, 1999	Quito, Ecuador	Clay	Luis Adrián Morejón	6–2, 3–6, 6–3
4.	November 1, 1999	Santiago, Chile	Clay	Karim Alami	6–7(4), 6–2, 6–4
5.	September 15, 2003	Szczecin, Poland	Clay	Albert Portas	6–4, 6–3
6.	May 5, 2008	Rijeka, Croatia	Clay	Christophe Rochus	6–2, 6–2
7.	October 6, 2008	Florianópolis, Brazil	Clay	Olivier Patience	6–7(4), 6–2, 6–1
8.	November 22, 2009	Cancún, Mexico	Clay	Grega Zemlja	6–3, 7–5

Challenger singles runners-up

No.	Date	Tournament	Surface	Opponent in the final	Score
1.	November 22, 1999	Guadalajara, Mexico	Clay	Francisco Costa	6–4, 5–7, 3–6
2.	April 14, 2003	Bermuda	Clay	Flávio Saretta	1–6, 4–6
3.	August 3, 2008	Belo Horizonte, Brazil	Hard	Santiago González	4–6, 3–6
4.	October 13, 2008	Montevideo, Uruguay	Clay	Peter Luczak	W/O
5.	October 23, 2009	Santiago, Chile	Clay	Eduardo Schwank	2–6, 2–6

Grand Slam performance timeline

Tournament	2000	2001	2002	2003	2004	2005	2006	2007	2008	2009	2010	2011	Career SR	Career win-loss
Australian Open	A	1R	1R	A	1R	2R	1R	1R	1R	1R	A	LQ	0 / 8	1–8
French Open	2R	1R	A	2R	3R	1R	3R	2R	LQ	2R	1R	-	0 / 9	8–9
Wimbledon	1R	3R	1R	2R	1R	2R	1R	1R	A	A	1R	-	0 / 9	4–9
U.S. Open	1R	2R	3R	3R	2R	4R	2R	1R	LQ	1R	A	-	0 / 9	10–9
Grand Slam Win-Loss	1–3	3–4	2–3	4–3	3–4	4–4	3–4	1–4	0–1	1–3	0–2	0–0	0 / 35	22–35
Year End Ranking	87	80	56	12	18	66	44	79	76	112	186	-	N/A	N/A

• A = did not participate in the tournament.
• LQ = lost in pre-tournament qualifying.
• SR = the ratio of the number of singles tournaments won to the number of those tournaments played.

See also

• List of select Jewish tennis players

External links

• Nicolás Massú at the Association of Tennis Professionals
• Nicolás Massú's Davis Cup record Official website of the Davis Cup

Preceded by Yevgeny Kafelnikov

Olympic Champion 2004

Succeeded by Rafael Nadal