Richard Krajicek

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**Richard Krajicek**

Country	Netherlands
Residence	Muiderberg, The Netherlands
Date of birth	December 6, 1971
Place of birth	Rotterdam, The Netherlands
Height	6'5 (195 cm)
Weight	196 lbs (89 kg)
Turned Pro	1989
Retired	2003
Plays	right-handed
Career Prize Money	$10,077,425
Singles
Career record:	411-219
Career titles:	17
Highest ranking:	4 (March 4, 1999)
Grand Slam results
Australian Open	SF (1992)
French Open	SF (1993), QF (1996)
Wimbledon	W (1996), SF (1998)
U.S. Open	QF (1997, 1999, 2000)
Doubles
Career record:	77-60
Career titles:	3
Highest ranking:	45 (July 26, 1993)
Infobox last updated on: n/a.

Richard Peter Stanislav Krajicek (born December 6, 1971) is a Dutch former professional tennis player. He is best remembered for winning the men's singles title at Wimbledon in 1996.

1 Career
2 Grand Slam singles finals
- 2.1 Wins (1)
3 Grand Slam singles performance timeline
4 Masters Series singles finals
- 4.1 Wins (2)
- 4.2 Runner-ups (4)
5 All singles titles (17)
6 External links

Krajicek was born in Rotterdam, the son of Czech immigrants in the Netherlands, Krajicek began playing tennis at the age of four. As a youngster he won the Dutch 12-under and 14-under National Championships twice each. He turned professional in 1989, and in 1991 won his first top-level singles title at Hong Kong, and his first tour doubles title in Hilversum.

In 1992, the 6ft 5 inch Dutchman reached his first Grand Slam semi-final at the Australian Open, but then had to withdraw from his semi-final match due to a shoulder injury. The following year, he reached the semi-finals at the French Open where he lost in four sets to the defending champion Jim Courier. Further in 1992, Krajicek made a controversial comment regarding equal pay for women in grand slam events, saying, "Eighty percent of the top 100 women are fat pigs who don't deserve equal pay." Later, he jokingly clarified his comments, remarking, "What I meant to say was that only 75 percent are fat pigs." [1]

Coming into Wimbledon in 1996, Krajicek had never previously progressed beyond the fourth round, and had lost in the first round in the two previous years. He was a player with undoubted potential, but was not considered to be one of the strongest contenders to win the title. The clear favourite was Pete Sampras, who had won the title for the past three consecutive years. Despite being ranked within the world's top 16, Krajicek just missed out on the seedings for the tournament, but when seventh seed (and world number one) Thomas Muster pulled out shortly before the tournament due to injury, Krajicek was given Muster's place in the draw.

He beat former champion Michael Stich in the fourth round, and then met Sampras in the quarter-finals. Krajicek shocked the tennis world by defeating Sampras in straight sets 7-5, 7-6, 6-4, becoming the only player to beat Sampras in a Wimbledon singles match in the eight-year period from 1993-2000. He then beat Australia's Jason Stoltenberg in the semi-finals, and went on to face American MaliVai Washington in the final. He won the final in straight sets 6-3, 6-4, 6-3 to become the first Dutchman to win Wimbledon.

Krajicek's victory over Sampras proved to be no fluke. He amassed a 6-4 record against the American player. The big-serving Krajicek is, together with Sergi Bruguera, Paul Haarhuis, Leander Paes and Michael Stich, the only tennis player of the same generation to have a career winning record against Sampras.

In 1998, Krajicek was in the Wimbledon semi-finals again, where he lost to Goran Ivanišević in a marathon match 6-3, 6-4, 5-7, 6-7, 15-13. His final attempt at winning a second Wimbledon title was in 2002, when he lost in the quarter-finals to Xavier Malisse. Krajicek retired from the professional tour in 2003. During his career, he won 17 singles titles and 3 doubles titles. His career-high singles ranking was world number 4 in 1999.

In 1999, Krajicek married Daphne Deckers, a Dutch fashion model, writer and actress who appeared in the James Bond movie Tomorrow Never Dies.

His younger half sister Michaëlla Krajicek was ranked the world no. 1 junior tennis player in 2004, and entered the top 100 on the professional tour in 2005 at the age of 16.

Since retiring from the ATP circuit, Krajicek runs The Richard Krajicek Foundation which builds sports facilities for children in Holland's inner-city areas. [2] In 2004 Krajicek became the tournament director of the ABN AMRO World Tennis Tournament in Rotterdam.

In 2005 he published a book on tennis called 'Hard Balls' (Dutch: 'Harde Ballen').

Year	Championship	Opponent in Final	Score in Final
1996	Wimbledon	MaliVai Washington	6-3, 6-4, 6-3

Tournament	2003	2002	2001	2000	1999	1998	1997	1996	1995	1994	1993	1992	1991
Australian Open	2r	-	-	2r	3r	-	-	3r	2r	-	2r	SF	4r
French Open	-	-	-	3r	2r	3r	3r	QF	2r	3r	SF	3r	2r
Wimbledon	-	QF	-	2r	3r	SF	4r	W	1r	1r	4r	3r	3r
US Open	-	1r	-	QF	QF	3r	QF	1r	3r	2r	4r	4r	1r

Year	Championship	Opponent in Final	Score in Final
1998	Stuttgart	Yevgeny Kafelnikov	6-4, 6-3, 6-3
1999	Key Biscane	Sébastien Grosjean	4-6, 6-1, 6-2, 7-5

Year	Championship	Opponent in Final	Score in Final
1996	Rome	Thomas Muster	6-2, 6-4, 3-6, 6-3
1997	Stuttgart	Petr Korda	7-6, 6-2, 6-4
1998	Toronto	Patrick Rafter	7-6, 6-4
1999	Stuttgart	Thomas Enqvist	6-1, 6-4, 5-7, 7-5