Alexander Vladimirovich Volkov (russian: Алекса́ндр Влади́мирович Во́лков ; 3 March 1967 – 19 October 2019) was a Russian 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.

Tennis career

Volkov finished runner-up in three tournaments over 1989 and 1990; in the latter year he defeated World No. 1

Stefan Edberg Stefan Bengt Edberg (; born 19 January 1966) is a Swedish former professional tennis player. A major proponent of the serve-and-volley style of tennis, he won six Grand Slam singles titles and three Grand Slam men's doubles titles between 19 ...

in straight sets in the first round of the US Open. Volkov won his first top-level professional singles title in 1991 at

Milan Milan ( , , Lombard: ; it, Milano ) is a city in northern Italy, capital of Lombardy, and the second-most populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of about 1.4 million, while its metropolitan city ...

. At Wimbledon that year, he lost a close match in the fourth round to the eventual tournament champion

Michael Stich Michael Detlef Stich (, ; born 18 October 1968) is a German former professional tennis player. He won the men's singles title at Wimbledon in 1991, the men's doubles titles at both Wimbledon and the Olympic Games in 1992, and was a singles r ...

, 4–6, 6–3, 7–5, 1–6, 7–5 despite winning the same number of games as Stich overall in the match, which hinged on a lucky shot hit by the German when he was trailing 3–5 in the final set. As Volkov served for the match, with the score at 30–15 in his favour, a shot hit by Stich was heading out, but the ball made contact with the inside edge of the top of the net post, sailed over Volkov's head, and landed inside the line, sparing the German from having to face two successive match-points during Volkov's service game, and bringing the scoreline instead to 30–30. Stich went on to take the game; and subsequently Volkov would not win another. Volkov was runner-up in three tournaments in 1992 and won his second title in 1993 in

Auckland Auckland (pronounced ) ( mi, Tāmaki Makaurau) is a large metropolitan city in the North Island of New Zealand. The most populous urban area in the country and the fifth largest city in Oceania, Auckland has an urban population of about I ...

. Later in 1993, Volkov defeated

Björn Borg Björn Rune Borg (; born 6 June 1956) is a Swedish former world No. 1 tennis player. Between 1974 and 1981, he became the first man in the Open Era to win 11 Grand Slam singles titles with six at the French Open and five consecutively at ...

in the first round of the Kremlin Cup in

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, in a match which proved to be the last of Borg's career. Volkov won the Kremlin Cup a year later in 1994 to claim his third (and final) career title. He reached one more final in 1997 in Shanghai. His best Grand Slam singles performance was reaching the semifinals of the 1993 US Open, where he defeated Jonathan Stark,

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and

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before losing to

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. Volkov was part of the Russian team that reached the final of 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 ...

in 1994. He won singles rubbers over

Patrick Rafter Patrick Michael Rafter (born 28 December 1972) is an Australian former world No. 1 tennis player. He reached the top Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) singles ranking on 26 July 1999. His career highlights include consecutive US Open ...

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in the first round and

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in the semifinals. However, he lost both his singles rubbers in the final as Russia was defeated by

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden,The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names states that the country's formal name is the Kingdom of SwedenUNGEGN World Geographical Names, Sweden./ref> is a Nordic countries, Nordic c ...

4–1. Volkov retired from the professional tour in 1998. His career-high singles ranking was world No. 14 in 1994. His career prize-money earnings totalled $3,362,786. He was Marat Safin's coach before the duo split in July 2007.

ATP career finals

Singles: 11 (3 titles, 8 runner-ups)

Doubles: 3 (3 runner-ups)

ATP Challenger and ITF Futures finals

Singles: 1 (1–0)

Performance timeline

Singles

Junior Grand Slam finals

Doubles: 1 (1 runner-up)

Top 10 wins

References

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Volkov, Alexander 1967 births 2019 deaths Olympic tennis players of the Soviet Union Sportspeople from Kaliningrad Russian male tennis players Soviet male tennis players Tennis players at the 1988 Summer Olympics