Filip Polášek (; born 21 July 1985) is a Slovak professional
tennis
Tennis is a racket sport that is played either individually against a single opponent (singles) or between two teams of two players each (doubles). Each player uses a tennis racket that is strung with cord to strike a hollow rubber ball cov ...
player who specialises in doubles.
He was forced to retire in 2013 due to health issues, but returned in 2018 and began the most successful phase of his career. Polášek won his first
Grand Slam title at the
2021 Australian Open
The 2021 Australian Open was a Grand Slam tennis tournament that took place at Melbourne Park, on 8–21 February 2021. It was the 109th edition of the Australian Open, the 53rd in the Open Era, and the first Major tournament of the year. It w ...
alongside Ivan Dodig, and also won the
2019 Cincinnati Masters and
2021 Indian Wells Masters, with Dodig and
John Peers
John William Peers (born 25 July 1988) is an Australian professional tennis player who specialises in doubles.
He won his first Grand Slam title at the 2017 Australian Open, where he and Henri Kontinen won the men's doubles event. Peers als ...
respectively.
Polášek was the first Slovak man to reach, or win, a major doubles final, and also reached the semifinals at the
2019 Wimbledon Championships
The 2019 Wimbledon Championships was a Grand Slam tennis tournament that took place at the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club in Wimbledon, London, United Kingdom. The main tournament began on Monday 1 July 2019 and finished on Sunday 1 ...
,
2020 Australian Open
The 2020 Australian Open was a Grand Slam (tennis), Grand Slam tennis tournament that took place at Melbourne Park, from 20 January to 2 February 2020. It was the 108th edition of the Australian Open, the 52nd in the Open Era, and the first Gran ...
and
2021 US Open.
He reached his highest doubles ranking of world No. 7 in February 2020, and has won 17 titles on the
ATP Tour
The ATP Tour is a worldwide top-tier tennis tour for men organized by the Association of Tennis Professionals. The second-tier tour is the ATP Challenger Tour and the third-tier is the ITF Men's World Tennis Tour. The equivalent women's organ ...
, qualifying for the ATP Finals in both
2019
File:2019 collage v1.png, From top left, clockwise: Hong Kong protests turn to widespread riots and civil disobedience; House of Representatives votes to adopt articles of impeachment against Donald Trump; CRISPR gene editing first used to experim ...
and
2021
File:2021 collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: the James Webb Space Telescope was launched in 2021; Protesters in Yangon, Myanmar following the coup d'état; A civil demonstration against the October 2021 coup in Sudan; Crowd shortly after t ...
. Polášek has represented Slovakia in the
Davis Cup
The Davis Cup is the premier international team event in men's tennis. It is run by the International Tennis Federation (ITF) and is contested annually between teams from competing countries in a knock-out format. It is described by the organi ...
since 2008, and also competed at the
2020 Summer Olympics
The , officially the and also known as , was an international multi-sport event held from 23 July to 8 August 2021 in Tokyo, Japan, with some preliminary events that began on 21 July.
Tokyo was selected as the host city during the ...
partnering
Lukáš Klein.
Career
2008: First ATP titles
Polášek reached his first ATP final at the
2008 Valencia Open with partner
, they fell to
Máximo González
Máximo González Mereira (; born July 20, 1983, in Tandil) is an Argentine professional tennis player. His career-high singles ranking is World No. 58, achieved in July 2009 and his career-high doubles ranking is World No. 22 achieved on 22 Apr ...
and
Juan Mónaco in two tight sets 5–7, 5–7. Later that year at the
Swiss Open Gsaad he won his first title with partner
Jaroslav Levinský in three sets. In October Polášek won his second title of the year at the
St. Petersburg Open
The St. Petersburg Open (russian: Открытый Санкт-Петербург) is a professional men's tennis tournament played on indoor hard courts. It is part of the ATP Tour 250 series of the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) Tou ...
with Travis Parrott.
2013: Retirement due to injury
In 2013 Polášek reached three ATP finals with partner
Julian Knowle, winning the later two the
Zagreb Indoors and the
Grand Prix Hassan II.
In November 2013 Polášek retired from professional tennis at the age of 28 due to nerve issues and loose discs in his back.
2018: Return to tennis
Several years after retirement and allowing his body to heal through less strenuous activities such as coaching tennis and ski touring, Polášek hit with
Mike Bryan
Michael Carl Bryan (born April 29, 1978) is an American former doubles world No. 1 tennis player. With his twin brother Bob, he was the world's top doubles player for more than nine years, first achieving the top ranking in Septem ...
and started playing some club matches again, and the pain of his previous injuries didn't seem to be reoccurring. He asked to take some time off from the coaching academy he taught at and started playing some futures and then challengers. By the end of September 2019 Polášek's doubles ranking had risen to within the top 200 for the first time in five years.
2019: First Masters 1000 title and Grand Slam semifinal
Polášek claimed his first ATP title in 6 years in
Kizbühel, partnering with
Philipp Oswald. At
Wimbledon he reached his first Grand Slam semifinal partnering with
Ivan Dodig in just their second tournament together. They then went on to capture their first Masters 1000 title as a team, and Polášek's first career masters title at the
Western & Southern Open in Cincinnati defeating
Juan Sebastian Cabal and
Robert Farah in the final 4–6, 6–4, 10–6.
Polášek and Dodig then went on to take their second title as a team defeating defending champions
Lukasz Kubot and
Marcelo Melo
Marcelo is a given name, the Spanish and Portuguese form of Marcellus. The Italian version of the name is Marcello, differing in having an additional "l". Marcelo may refer to:
* Marcelo Costa de Andrade (born 1967), Brazilian serial killer, rapi ...
to take the
China Open title in Beijing.
2020: Second Grand Slam semifinal, World No. 7 in doubles
Dodig and Polášek began their 2020 season at the
Adelaide International, where they reached the final, losing to
Maximo Gonzalez
Maximo or Máximo may refer to:
Arts
* Capcom video game series
** '' Maximo: Ghosts to Glory'' (also known as just ''Maximo'')
** ''Maximo vs. Army of Zin'', the sequel to ''Ghosts to Glory''
* Maxïmo Park, a British indie rock band
* Maximu or ...
and
Fabrice Martin.
They then reached the semifinals of the
2020 Australian Open
The 2020 Australian Open was a Grand Slam (tennis), Grand Slam tennis tournament that took place at Melbourne Park, from 20 January to 2 February 2020. It was the 108th edition of the Australian Open, the 52nd in the Open Era, and the first Gran ...
before being defeated by
Max Purcell and
Luke Saville. As a result he reached a new career-high doubles ranking of World No. 7 on 3 February 2020.
After this the
ATP Tour
The ATP Tour is a worldwide top-tier tennis tour for men organized by the Association of Tennis Professionals. The second-tier tour is the ATP Challenger Tour and the third-tier is the ITF Men's World Tennis Tour. The equivalent women's organ ...
was suspended due to the
COVID-19 pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identi ...
. On the tour's resumption in August at the
Cincinnati Masters
The Cincinnati Masters or Cincinnati Open (branded as the Western & Southern Open for sponsorship reasons) is an annual outdoor hardcourt tennis event held in Mason, Ohio near Cincinnati. The event started on September 18, 1899, and is the ol ...
in New York and at the
US Open they fell in the first round.
2021: Historic and first Grand Slam title at the Australian Open
Polášek and his partner Dodig reached the final of their first tournament in 2021 at the
Antalya Open
The Antalya Open is an ATP Tour 250 series tennis tournament on the ATP Tour launched in June 2017 in Antalya, Turkey
Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a transcontinent ...
, where they lost to
Nikola Mektic
Nikola () is a given name which, like Nicholas, is a version of the Greek ''Nikolaos'' (Νικόλαος). It is common as a masculine given name in the South Slavic countries (Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, North Macedonia, Monten ...
and
Mate Pavic
Mate may refer to:
Science
* Mate, one of a pair of animals involved in:
** Mate choice, intersexual selection
** Mating
* Multi-antimicrobial extrusion protein, or MATE, an efflux transporter family of proteins
Person or title
* Friendship
...
. After two weeks quarantine in Australia, they reached the semifinals of the Great Ocean Road Open, where they lost out to
Jamie Murray
Jamie Robert Murray, (born 13 February 1986) is a Scottish professional tennis player from Scotland who specialises in doubles. He is a seven-time Grand Slam doubles champion (five in mixed doubles and two in men's doubles), a Davis Cup win ...
and
Bruno Soares.
Continuing to partner with Dodig, Polášek won his first Grand Slam tournament at the
Australian Open
The Australian Open is a tennis tournament held annually at Melbourne Park in Melbourne, Australia. The tournament is the first of the four Grand Slam tennis events held each year, preceding the French Open, Wimbledon, and the US Ope ...
defeating
Rajeev Ram
Rajeev Ram ( ; born March 18, 1984) is an American professional tennis player who is a former world No. 1 in doubles.
Ram is a five-time major champion, having won the 2020 Australian Open, the 2021 US Open, and the 2022 US Open in men's d ...
and
Joe Salisbury in the final.
With the title he became the first Slovak male Grand Slam champion.
As a result, he returned to the top 10 on 22 February 2021.
Significant finals
Grand Slam tournament finals
Doubles: 1 (1 title)
Masters 1000 finals
Doubles: 2 (2 titles)
ATP career finals
Doubles: 35 (17 titles, 18 runners-up)
Challenger and Futures finals
Singles: 3 (1–2)
Doubles: 54 (33–21)
Doubles performance timeline
''Current through the
2022 Davis Cup
The 2022 Davis Cup was the 110th edition of the Davis Cup, a tournament between national teams in men's tennis. It is sponsored by Rakuten. The Russian Tennis Federation were the defending champions, but they and Belarus were eliminated from com ...
.''
References
External links
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Polasek, Filip
Slovak male tennis players
1985 births
Living people
People from Zvolen
Tennis players at the 2020 Summer Olympics
Olympic tennis players of Slovakia