Thomas Ho (born June 17, 1973, in

Winter Haven, Florida Winter Haven is a city in Polk County, Florida, United States. It is located about east of Tampa, Florida, Tampa and about southwest of Orlando, Florida, Orlando, with neighboring Lakeland, Florida, Lakeland located to its west. The city's popul ...

) is an American 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.

Tennis career

Juniors

Ho first came to the tennis world's attention as an exceptionally successful junior player. He won several junior tennis events in the 1980s, and set a number of 'youngest-ever' records.

Pro tour

In August 1988, Ho became the youngest male player in the open era to play in the main draw of the US Open singles at the age of 15 years and 2 months. He lost the first round match to

Johan Kriek Johan Christiaan Kriek (born April 5, 1958) is a South African–American former professional tennis player. As a tennis player, he won two Australian Open titles and reached the semifinals at the French Open and US Open, as well as the quarte ...

6–4, 7–6, 7–6. That same month, Ho became the second youngest male player to win a main draw match at a top-level tour event when he beat Matt Anger in the first round at Rye Brook 6–4, 3–6, 6–4, just after Argentina's

Franco Davín Franco Davín (; born January 11, 1970) is a tennis coach and a former professional player from Argentina. Davín won three singles tournaments on the ATP Tour, and reached a career-high singles ranking of World No. 30 in October 1990. Davín wo ...

. Ho's early successes drew many comparisons with

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 ...

, another

Asian American Asian Americans are Americans with ancestry from the continent of Asia (including naturalized Americans who are immigrants from specific regions in Asia and descendants of those immigrants). Although this term had historically been used fo ...

tennis player who achieved great success as a junior. However Ho did not manage to make the same kind of impact on the professional circuit as Chang (who went on to win the

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 ...

and reach the World No. 2 singles ranking). Ho enjoyed some success in satellite tournaments, but did not win any top-level singles events on the tour. He did, however, win four tour doubles titles (

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 ...

in 1994, and Beijing, Hong Kong and Indian Wells in 1995). Ho's professional career was hampered by injuries. In 1995, Ho and Brett Steven became the fastest-ever losers of a match at

Wimbledon Wimbledon most often refers to: * Wimbledon, London, a district of southwest London * Wimbledon Championships, the oldest tennis tournament in the world and one of the four Grand Slam championships Wimbledon may also refer to: Places London * W ...

. In the very first point of their men's doubles match, Steven served and Ho tried to intercept the return at the net, only to injure his back. The pair thus had had to forfeit the match after just one rally, which had lasted all of five seconds. The back injury was to recur again in future years, and eventually led to Ho's retirement from the tour in 1997. During his professional career, Ho reached career-high rankings of World No. 85 in singles and World No. 13 in doubles. His career prize-money totalled $793,819.

Post-retirement

Since retiring from the tour, Ho has completed a degree at

Rice University William Marsh Rice University, commonly referred to as Rice University, is a Private university, private research university in Houston, Houston, Texas, United States. Established in 1912, the university spans 300 acres. Rice University comp ...

Houston Houston ( ) is the List of cities in Texas by population, most populous city in the U.S. state of Texas and in the Southern United States. Located in Southeast Texas near Galveston Bay and the Gulf of Mexico, it is the county seat, seat of ...

and worked as a tennis journalist. In 2011, Ho was inducted into the

USTA The United States Tennis Association (USTA) is the national Sport governing body, governing body for tennis in the United States. A not-for-profit organization with more than 700,000 members, it invests 100% of its proceeds to promote and devel ...

Florida Hall of Fame. After working as a partner at global recruiting firm Heidrick & Struggles, he is currently the Chief Talent Officer at Quantum Energy Partners.

ATP career finals

Doubles: 7 (4 titles, 3 runner-ups)

ATP Challenger and ITF Futures Finals

Singles: 8 (4–4)

Doubles: 6 (4–2)

Performance timelines

Singles

Doubles

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Ho, Tommy 1973 births Living people American male tennis players Sportspeople from Winter Haven, Florida Rice University alumni Tennis players from Florida American tennis players of Taiwanese descent 20th-century American sportsmen