Janis Skroderis (born August 14, 1983) is a
Latvia
Latvia, officially the Republic of Latvia, is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is one of the three Baltic states, along with Estonia to the north and Lithuania to the south. It borders Russia to the east and Belarus to t ...
n 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.
Career
Notably, Skroderis was the very first player that future
world No. 1 Novak Djokovic
Novak Djokovic ( sr-Cyrl-Latn, Новак Ђоковић, Novak Đoković, separator=" / ", ; born 22 May 1987) is a Serbian professional tennis player. He has been ranked as the List of ATP number 1 ranked singles tennis players#Weeks at N ...
ever faced in an official
ATP match, a dead rubber in the
2004 Davis Cup
The 2004 Davis Cup was the 93rd edition of the tournament between nations in men's tennis. A total of 130 nations participated in the tournament. In the final, Spain defeated the United States at the Estadio de La Cartuja in Seville, Spain, on ...
match between Serbia and Montenegro and Latvia, which he lost 2–6, 2–6.
Talking about this match, Skroderis stated: “I remember that I had several chances in that match because Novak was very young and inexperienced, but when it was necessary, he increased the pace and won both sets. After that match, he won several
Challengers and his career took off. It seems that it was me who brought him luck, so I am very happy”.
He played mainly on the
ITF Futures tournaments. Skroderis' career high in the ATP singles rankings was position No. 1233, which he achieved in June 2004, and the official statistics say that he only played two matches at ATP level, losing both of them.
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References
External links
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Skroderis, Janis
Latvian male tennis players
Sportspeople from Jūrmala
1983 births
Living people