David Nainkin (born 20 September 1970) is a former professional

tennis Tennis is a List of racket sports, racket sport that is played either individually against a single opponent (singles (tennis), singles) or between two teams of two players each (doubles (tennis), doubles). Each player uses a tennis racket st ...

player from

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Career

Nainkin never reached a final on the

ATP Tour The ATP Tour (known as ATP World Tour between January 2009 and December 2018) is the sole worldwide top-tier tennis tour for men organized by the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) founded in 1990 that replaced the earlier dual Grand Prix ...

but made it into the semi-finals of the 1995 Nokia Open in

Beijing Beijing, Chinese postal romanization, previously romanized as Peking, is the capital city of China. With more than 22 million residents, it is the world's List of national capitals by population, most populous national capital city as well as ...

, before losing to

Michael Chang Michael Te-pei Chang (born February 22, 1972) is an American former professional tennis player and coach. He was ranked world No. 2 by the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) in 1996. Chang is the youngest man in history to win a singl ...

. He had the best win of his Grand Slam career at the 1996 US Open when he upset countryman and number nine seed

Wayne Ferreira Wayne Richard Ferreira (born 15 September 1971) is a South African tennis coach and a former professional player. Ferreira won 15 ATP singles titles and 11 doubles titles. His career-high rankings were world No. 6 in singles (in May 1995) and ...

6–4, 6–4, 2–6, 7–5 in the opening round. This was despite Nainkin being ranked 215 in the world and having never previously won a Grand Slam match in five attempts. He lost in straight sets to

Jonas Björkman Jonas Lars Björkman (; born 23 March 1972) is a Swedish former professional tennis player. He is a former world No. 1 in doubles, and also a former world No. 4 in singles. Björkman retired from professional tennis after competing at the 2008 ...

in the second round. In the 1998 US Open he made it into the third round, his best ever showing, with wins over fellow qualifier Mark Merklein (6–7, 6–0, 6–4, 6–4 ) and

French Open The French Open (), also known as Roland-Garros (), is a tennis tournament organized by the French Tennis Federation annually at Stade Roland Garros in Paris, France. It is chronologically the second of the four Grand Slam (tennis), Grand Slam ...

winner

Gustavo Kuerten Gustavo "Guga" Kuerten (; born 10 September 1976) is a Brazilian former professional tennis player. He was ranked as the list of ATP number 1 ranked singles tennis players, world No. 1 in men's singles by the Association of Tennis Professionals f ...

(2–6, 6–4, 6–3, 6–4). He was then eliminated by eventual champion

Patrick Rafter Patrick Michael Rafter (born 28 December 1972) is an Australian former professional tennis player. He was ranked as the world No. 1 in men's singles by the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP), and world No. 6 in doubles. Rafter won eleven ...

6–1, 6–1, 6–1. The South African represented his country at the

1998 1998 was designated as the ''International Year of the Ocean''. Events January * January 6 – The ''Lunar Prospector'' spacecraft is launched into orbit around the Moon, and later finds evidence for Lunar water, frozen water, in soil i ...

and 1999 Davis Cups. He now works for the

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and coaches top American players such as

Mardy Fish Mardy Simpson Fish (born December 9, 1981) is an American former professional tennis player. He was a hardcourt specialist. He is one of several American tennis players who rose to prominence in the early 2000s. Fish won six tournaments on the ...

Sam Querrey Samuel Austin Querrey ( ; born October 7, 1987) is an American professional pickleball player and former tennis player. He reached a career-high singles ranking of world No. 11 achieved on February 26, 2018, and won ten ATP singles titles. Known ...

and

Sloane Stephens Sloane Stephens (born March 20, 1993) is an American professional tennis player. She has achieved a career-best ranking of world No. 3 by the Women's Tennis Association, WTA. Stephens has won eight WTA Tour-level singles titles, including the 2 ...

. Previously, he had been the personal coach of Wayne Ferreira.USTA Profile
/ref> In 2020 he was the head coach for the US Olympic Tennis Team.

Challenger titles

Singles: (1)

Doubles: (4)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Nainkin, David 1970 births Living people South African male tennis players South African tennis coaches South African expatriates in the United States Tennis players from Durban