Benjamin Balleret (born 15 January 1983) is a professional tennis player from Monaco. His father,

Bernard Balleret Bernard Balleret (born 11 May 1954) is a French-born Monegasque professional tennis player. Balleret participated in the main draw of three French Opens during his career. He lost to American Fred McNair in the opening round of the 1976 French ...

, is former tennis player, while his cousin

Arthur Rinderknech Arthur Rinderknech (born 23 July 1995) is a French tennis player. He has a career-high ATP singles ranking of world No. 42 achieved on 31 October 2022. He also has a career-high ATP doubles ranking of world No. 124 achieved on 8 November 2021. P ...

also plays the sport professionally. Balleret is a member of the

Monaco Davis Cup team The Monaco men's national tennis team represents Monaco in the Davis Cup tennis competition and are governed by the Fédération Monegasque de Lawn Tennis. Monaco currently compete in Europe Zone Group III. The team reached the top-8 in the Eur ...

Tennis career

Juniors

As a junior Balleret reached as high as No. 19 in the junior world singles rankings (and No. 29 in doubles) in 2001.

Pro tour

Balleret is best known for his April 2006 fairy tale run to the third round of the Monte Carlo Open, an ATP Masters Series. Entering the tournament, he was ranked 351st in the world and had competed only in challenger tournaments and several

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 orga ...

matches (he played for the Monegasque team in 2004 and 2005 and compiled a modest record of 4 wins and 5 losses). However, on 16 April 2006, he received a wild card into the qualifying draw of the Monte Carlo Open and won upsets over seeded, far more accomplished players than he including clay court specialist

Albert Portas Albert Portas Soy (, ; born 15 November 1973) is a Spanish former professional tennis player. Career Portas turned professional in 1994. He reached his career-high singles ranking of World No. 19 in October 2001. His only top-level singles tit ...

(at the time ranked 106th in the world and seeded 13th in the qualifying draw) as well as U.S. Open and Wimbledon semi-finalist

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 T ...

(at the time ranked 71st in the world and seeded third in the qualifying draw). These wins earned Balleret a spot in the main draw, and his performance there is what earned him international headlines. He won upsets over

Christophe Rochus Christophe Rochus (born 15 December 1978) is a retired professional male tennis player from Belgium. Rochus is the older brother of Olivier Rochus. He reached the semi-finals of the Hamburg Masters in 2005 and was runner-up in two ATP tourname ...

(at the time ranked 44th in the world) and

Sébastien Grosjean Sébastien René Grosjean (; born 29 May 1978) is a French former professional tennis player. Grosjean reached the semifinals at the 2001 Australian and French Opens, and at Wimbledon in 2003 and 2004. He finished eight consecutive seasons rank ...

(at the time ranked 23rd in the world, number one in France, and seeded thirteenth in the main draw). Balleret's impressive run came to an end in the third round, in which he lost to world number one

Roger Federer Roger Federer (; born 8 August 1981) is a Swiss former professional tennis player. He was ranked world No. 1 by the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) for 310 weeks, including a record 237 consecutive weeks, and finished as the year-e ...

. After Balleret's performance at this prestigious clay court event, he shot up 134 positions in the rankings to World No. 217. In 2013, Balleret and Guillaume Couillard played the longest professional tiebreak in known tennis history, lasting 70 points (36–34). Balleret won the match 7–6(34), 6–1 in the third qualifying round for the USA F1 Futures in

Plantation, Florida Plantation is a city in Broward County, Florida, United States. As of the 2020 U.S. census, the population was 91,750. It is a principal city of the Miami metropolitan area. The city's name comes from the previous part-owner of the land, the E ...

.Chase, Chris (2013)
"The Longest Tiebreak in Tennis?"
''USA Today'', 7 January 2013. He won the Pensacola Futures tournament in 2013.

References

External links

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Balleret Recent Match Results

Balleret World Ranking History

Monaco Men Recent Match Results
{{DEFAULTSORT:Balleret, Benjamin 1983 births Monegasque male tennis players Monegasque people of French descent Living people People from Monte Carlo