Evgeny Korolev

For other people with this name, see Yevgeni Korolyov.

Evgeny Korolev

Country (sports)	Kazakhstan, Russia
Residence	Astana, Kazakhstan
Height	1.85 m (6 ft 1 in)
Turned pro	2005
Plays	Right-handed; two-handed backhand
Prize money	$1,077,002
Singles
Career record	59–68
Career titles	0
Highest ranking	No. 46 (February 22, 2010)
Current ranking	No. 77 (June 14, 2010)
Grand Slam singles results
Australian Open	3R (2010)
French Open	2R (2007)
Wimbledon	2R (2010)
US Open	2R (2008)
Doubles
Career record	3–18
Career titles	0
Highest ranking	No. 138 (February 1, 2010)
Grand Slam doubles results
Australian Open	2R (2010)
French Open	1R (2009)
Wimbledon	2R (2009)
Last updated on: November 9, 2009.

Evgeny Korolev (Russian: Евгений Королёв) is a Kazakhstan tennis player and the cousin of Russian former player Anna Kournikova. He began playing tennis at age four with his father and picked up his first ATP points at age 15 in three German Challengers. He can speak Russian, German, English and Spanish.

Personal

Evgeny was raised in Moscow, and began playing tennis at age four with his father, Evgeny, who still coaches him and used to play hockey. Evgeny also never played the junior circuit and picked up his first ATP points at age 15 in three German Challengers which was a method used by fellow professionals Nicolás Almagro and David Ferrer. Mother, Irina, is a housewife and sometimes travels to tournaments as well. He also has one older brother, Alexey, who is his physio therapist and helps with his business matters. Evgeny also had a private tutor that helped him speak Russian, German and English. Korolev's favorite surfaces are hard and clay courts and he considers the backhand his favorite shot, although he admits to generating more power off his forehand wing.

Career

Early Years

Evgeny began playing the main tour in 2004 at the age of 16, Evgeny began playing Challengers and Futures in order to become physically stronger and took the respective circuits apart with a brutal run of wins. At the age of 16 Evgeny lapped up his first future towards the end of 2004 and compiled an extremely respectable win loss record at such as young age.

In 2005, he continued where he left off by winning 3 futures and a challenger event. He started off the year with a final loss in a German futures event however beat fellow hopeful Andrey Golubev on the way. He however continued to progress and develop by later claiming his 2nd futures win in France, to which he disposed of home favorite Mathieu Moncourt in the final with ease. He later won another futures event in Austria before crushing his way through another F1 event within France for his 4th Futures success. At this stage it was becoming evident that the Big game of Korolev's was far too strong for the lower sectors of the game which influenced him to start playing more challenger events to which he did. Aachen challenger was then bulldozed for the second year running as Evgeny ran through Igor Kunitsyn and Dominik Meffert on his way to the title.

2006 then began, and Evgeny wasted no time in putting the tennis world on notice, this occurred in Marseille where Evgeny claimed a win over fellow countryman and Current world number 5 Nikolay Davydenko, he eventually went on to lose in the Quarter Finals to french veteran Sébastien Grosjean. This proved to be no fluke when Evgeny shortly after beat former World Number 1 and Grand Slam winner Carlos Moyá before eliminating Andreas Seppi on his Grand Slam debut at Roland Garros before going out in a thriller to Gastón Gaudio. He then won another challenger, however lost in Aachen challenger after two previous triumphs, Evgeny lost to Sluiter in the final however before that match compiled a 14 match winning streak in that tournament which is a true reflection of his talent.

2007-2008

Evgeny then went on to the Australian Open 2007 however lost a very tight match to Fernando González who went on to be runner up, Evgeny also lost to Radek Štěpánek and James Blake prior to the event. He then continued to impress in the American swing with a semi final birth against Jürgen Melzer, despite that semi final loss Evgeny claimed wins over James Blake and Sam Querrey along the way, and despite some controversy from Del Potro. Korolev then played his first master series event in Indian Wells to which he was eliminated by Novak Djokovic in straight sets, however described it has a learning curve after wins over Simon Gruel and close friend Dmitry Tursunov. He later lost in the US Open to talented Swiss Stanislas Wawrinka in a power stroke encounter that went the distance. Evgeny then once again claimed the Aachen challenger title by defeating Andreas Beck in the final to win the tournament for a third time. He then went on to St. Petersburg, a tournament he was very much looking forward to however faced his practice partner Andy Murray and went out in straight sets against the British number 1.

In 2008 Korolev also began quickly claiming victories over the likes of Paul Henri Mathieu and Fernando González, Korolev reached the quarterfinals in his second event of the year in Sydney, losing to Frenchman Fabrice Santoro. During the second round of a tournament in Las Vegas, Korolev was leading 6–3 5–2 against number one seed Fernando González of Chile. He served for the match twice and was broken each time. He eventually prevailed in a second set tiebreak but needed 11 match points to win. He said that if he had lost that second set, he would have lost the match. Korolev reached his first semifinal of the year, losing to Nicolás Almagro in Valencia. Korolev then went to Rome and faced Robin Söderling first round in which the two battled in an heated encounter in which Söderling told Korolev to be quiet when the Swede argued with umpire Fergus Murphy over a line call before being rightly interrupted by Evgeny, however Korolev not only won that one but also beat Söderling again at the US Open later that year. After losing in the first round in Munich and Roland Garros, Korolev reached his third quarterfinal of the year, losing to number one Russian Nikolay Davydenko. At the US Open, Evgeny beat Swedish Robin Söderling before losing to Gaël Monfils in the second round. After undergoing another hernia surgery, Evgeny made a comeback on the Challenger Circuit in the fall. His biggest successes were a title win in Aachen, Germany and a semifinal showing in Düsseldorf.

2009

At the 2009 Australian Open, Korolev made his way through qualifying and upset former world number 1, Carlos Moyá, in the first round. He lost to Roger Federer in round 2 2-6, 3-6, 1-6. At the end of February, Korolev reached his first ATP World Tour final at the Delray Beach tournament in the United States. Again starting in qualifying, he won 7 straight matches (including wins over world number 38, Igor Kunitsyn, and Guillermo García López) before eventually falling in the final to top seed, Mardy Fish, 7-5, 6-3. The fine week in Delray Beach pushed Korolev back into the ATP Tour's top 100 players, at number 79. After early losses in Masters 1000 events in Indian Wells and Miami including a loss in the Sunrise, Florida Challenger, Evgeny moved on to Houston, his first clay tournament of the year and the fist in the US. It was a success as he reached his second semifinal of the year by racking up wins against the like of Leonardo Mayer, Danies Ginemo Traver and Guillermo Cañas, before losing to former world #1 and eventual champion Lleyton Hewitt6-7(4), 4-6. That result brought him to the #72 world ranking. Evgeny has since however struggled to build on that great run with Masters 1000 defeats to Juan Mónaco and Eduardo Schwank when aiming to qualify and was also put out of Munich is straight sets to talented Frenchman Jérémy Chardy. However Korolev did manage to claim a victory in Düsseldorf with a solid routine win over Andreas Seppi building on their career battles to 2-0 in favour Korolev, however went on to lose to both Troicki of Serbia and also Máximo González of Argentina. Roland Garros on the other hand was not a fortunate event for Evgeny with Korolev having to pull out of a match with Gimeno Traver after his continuing ankle problem which forced him out of doubles the week prior to the event. His next scheduled event will be Queens Club where he was dispatched easily by Frenchman Michaël Llodra, he was also on the wrong side of loss in Eastbourne where he bowed out to Garcia Lopez despite having had a winning record against the Spaniard, Korolev then faced good friend and fellow country man Igor Andreev in Wimbeldon and crashed out in 4 very tight and high quality sets. He has since insisted on taking part in occasional challenger events in which he admits his motivation has been hindered given the evident change from main tour to those lesser events, this therefore most likely contributed to losses to Pere Riba and Roberto Bautista.

In September, Evgeny Korolev has won 17th Szczecin Pekao Open, defeating 4-6 6-3 6-2 Albert Montañés in the semi-final and 6-4 6-3 in the final match against Frenchman Florent Serra. He then reached three straight ATP level quarterfinals in 2009 Open de Moselle losing to Philipp Kohlschreiber 6-1 6-3, in 2009 PTT Thailand Open losing to eventual champion Gilles Simon after defeating Fabrice Santoro and Robby Ginepri and in 2009 Kremlin Cup losing to Illya Marchenko 0-6 6-2 6-3 after defeating compatriots Igor Kunitsyn and Marat Safin. As the 6th seed he lost in the first round of 2009 St. Petersburg Open to qualifier and eventual champion Sergiy Stakhovsky. He played his last tournament of the year in the 2009 Davidoff Swiss Indoors as a qualifier, defeating Simone Bolelli 3-6, 7-6(4), 6-2 and Jérémy Chardy 6-4, 7-6(1) before losing to top seed Roger Federer 6-3, 6-2.

2010

Korolev began the year at the 2010 Qatar ExxonMobil Open and the 2010 Medibank International Sydney bothreaching the second round losing to Roger Federer and Mardy Fish after upsetting Sam Querrey respectively. In the 2010 Australian Open he made through the 3rd round losing to 11th seed Fernando González in five sets 7-6(5), 3-6, 6-1, 3-6, 4-6 after defeating 21st seed Tomáš Berdych in straight sets. He then suffered early defeats in 2010 PBZ Zagreb Indoors in the first round to Ivan Dodig, in the 2010 Regions Morgan Keegan Championships in the second round to Philipp Petzschner and in the second round of 2010 Delray Beach International Tennis Championships to Jarkko Nieminen. In the 2010 BNP Paribas Open, he lost to Robin Söderling 6-2, 6-4 in the second round after defeating Florian Mayer 6-3, 6-2 and the first round of 2010 Sony Ericsson Open to Dudi Sela 6-3, 6-3.

Non-tennis activities and plans

Evgeny has altered his calendar based on his promotional activity within Russia, this is based on his recent advertisements in regards to items such as deodorants and chocolate in which Korolev has associated himself very closely within the media section of the sporting world.

Singles Titles (9)

Legend (Singles)

Grand Slam (0)

Tennis Masters Cup (0)

ATP Masters Series (0)

ATP Tour (0)

Challengers (5)

Futures (4)

No.	Date	Tournament	Surface	Opponent in the final	Score
1.	Sep. 13, 2004	Friedberg	Clay	Marius Zay	6–2, 6–2
2.	Apr. 4, 2005	Angers	Clay (I)	Mathieu Montcourt	5–7, 6–3, 7–6(3)
3.	Jul. 18, 2005	Kramsach	Clay	Armin Sandbichler	7–6(1), 6–0
4.	Sep. 12, 2005	Mulhouse	Hard	Philipp Hammer	6–4, 6–3
5.	Oct. 31, 2005	Aachen	Carpet (I)	Raemon Sluiter	6–3, 7–6(7)
6.	Sep. 4, 2006	Düsseldorf	Clay	Andreas Vinciguerra	7–6(4), 6–3
7.	Oct. 29, 2007	Aachen	Carpet (I)	Andreas Beck	6–4, 6–4
8.	Oct. 27, 2008	Aachen	Carpet (I)	Ruben Bemelmans	7–6(5), 7–6(3)
9.	20 September, 2009	Szczecin	Carpet (I)	Florent Serra	6–4, 6–3

Runners-up (1)

Legend (Singles)

Grand Slam (0)

Tennis Masters Cup (0)

ATP Masters Series (0)

ATP Tour (1)

No.	Date	Tournament	Surface	Opponent in the final	Score
1.	March 1, 2009	Delray Beach, United States	Hard	Mardy Fish	5–7, 3–6

References

http://www.atpworldtour.com/tennis/5/en/players/playerprofiles/highlights.asp?playernumber=K760

External links

• Evgeny Korolev at the Association of Tennis Professionals
• Official website