Kristian Pless Explained

Kristian Peter Pless (born 9 February 1981) is a former professional male tennis player from Denmark.

Tennis career

Juniors

Pless had an excellent junior career, winning the 1999 Australian Open Boys' Singles (defeated Mikhail Youzhny), and reaching the Boys' final at both Wimbledon (lost to Jürgen Melzer), and the US Open (lost to Jarkko Nieminen) the same year. He finished 1999 as the No. 1 ranked junior player in the world.^[1]

Pro tour

He turned professional in 1999, and on 28 January 2002, Kristian Pless reached his career-high ATP singles ranking of World No. 65. He has won tournaments at the Futures and Challenger levels, and has reached three semifinals on the ATP Tour. He suffered a serious shoulder injury in 2003, which after multiple surgery kept him out of competition for almost a year.

After returning from injury in 2004, he had dropped in the rankings to World No. 846 on 24 May. Subsequently, he has gradually climbed the rankings, and after successful performances at the Challenger level in autumn 2006, he entered the Top 100 again. In January 2007, he continued his good performances as he defeated World No. 8 David Nalbandian in three sets in the first round of Chennai Open. This was Pless' first win against a Top-10 ranked player.

In 2007 he also managed to take a set from tennis legend Roger Federer at their meeting in Dubai, but eventually Federer won the tie 7–6⁽²⁾, 3–6, 6–3. It was first set Federer had lost that year after he had won the Australian Open without losing a single set.

In 2008 he reached two Challenger finals (in Izmir, Turkey and Rimouski, Canada), but ended the year outside of Top 100. 2009 was his last year on tour.^[2]

Junior Grand Slam finals

Singles: 3 (1 title, 2 runner-ups)

Result	Year	Tournament	Surface	Opponent	Score
Win	1999	Australian Open	Hard	Mikhail Youzhny	6–4, 6–3
Loss	1999	Wimbledon	Grass	Jürgen Melzer	6–7, 3–6
Loss	1999	US Open	Hard	Jarkko Nieminen	7–6, 3–6, 4–6

Doubles: 2 (1 title, 1 runner-up)

Result	Year	Tournament	Surface	Partnet	Opponents	Score
Win	1999	Australian Open	Hard	Jürgen Melzer	Ladislav Chramosta Michal Navrátil	6–7, 6–3, 6–0
Loss	1999	French Open	Clay	Olivier Rochus	Irakli Labadze Lovro Zovko	1–6, 6–7

ATP Challenger and ITF Futures finals

Singles: 20 (7–13)

Legend ATP Challenger (4–11) ITF Futures (3–2)

Finals by surface Hard (1–9) Clay (4–2) Grass (0–0) Carpet (2–2)

Result	W–L	Date	Tournament	Tier	Surface	Opponent	Score
Loss	0–1		New Zealand F3, Christchurch	Futures	Hard	Louis Vosloo	4–6, 3–6
Win	1–1		Austria F3, Schwaz	Futures	Clay	Scott Barron	6–3, 7–5
Win	2–1		Ireland F1, Dublin	Futures	Carpet	Grant Doyle	6–3, 6–7(5–7), 6–1
Win	3–1		Hungary F6, Budapest	Futures	Clay	Alexander Peya	7–5, 6–3
Loss	3–2		Hull, United Kingdom	Challenger	Carpet	Michael Kohlmann	7–5, 6–7(3–7), 6–7(5–7)
Win	4–2		Edinburgh, United Kingdom	Challenger	Clay	Gorka Fraile	6–3, 6–3
Loss	4–3		Furth, Germany	Challenger	Clay	Germán Puentes	4–6, 3–6
Win	5–3		Rio de Janeiro, Brazil	Challenger	Hard	Ricardo Mello	6–1, 6–1
Loss	5–4		Poland F3, Warsaw	Futures	Clay	Dušan Karol	3–6, 4–6
Loss	5–5		Belo Horizonte, Brazil	Challenger	Hard	John Paul Fruttero	6–7(4–7), 6–7(6–8)
Loss	5–6		Southampton, United Kingdom	Challenger	Hard	Jérôme Haehnel	2–6, 3–6
Loss	5–7		Dublin, Ireland	Challenger	Carpet	Mischa Zverev	5–7, 6–7(6–8)
Loss	5–8		Nottingham, United Kingdom	Challenger	Hard	Alexander Waske	4–6, 3–6
Win	6–8		Rimouski, Canada	Challenger	Carpet	Lu Yen-hsun	6–4, 7–6(7–5)
Loss	6–9		Nashville, United States	Challenger	Hard	Robin Haase	6–7(9–11), 3–6
Win	7–9		Saint-Brieuc, France	Challenger	Clay	Farrukh Dustov	6–3, 6–1
Loss	7–10		Grenoble, France	Challenger	Hard	Nicolás Lapentti	3–6, 5–7
Loss	7–11		Cherbourg, France	Challenger	Hard	Thierry Ascione	5–7, 6–7(5–7)
Loss	7–12		Izmir, Turkey	Challenger	Hard	Gilles Müller	5–7, 3–6
Loss	7–13		Rimouski, Canada	Challenger	Hard	Ryan Sweeting	4–6, 6–7(3–7)

Doubles: 7 (4–3)

Legend ATP Challenger (4–1) ITF Futures (0–2)

Finals by surface Hard (2–2) Clay (0–0) Grass (1–0) Carpet (1–1)

Result	W–L	Date	Tournament	Tier	Surface	Partner	Opponents	Score
Loss	0–1		New Zealand F3, Christchurch	Futures	Hard	Mark Nielsen	Wynn Criswell Shaun Rudman	2–6, 6–2, 1–6
Win	1–1		Lucknow, India	Challenger	Grass	Paradorn Srichaphan	Martin Lee Jamie Delgado	5–7, 6–3, 7–5
Loss	1–2		Ireland F1, Dublin	Futures	Carpet	Jarkko Nieminen	Gilles Elseneer Jean-Michel Pequery	6–7(2–7), 6–4, 3–6
Win	2–2		Prague, Czech Republic	Challenger	Hard	Aisam Qureshi	Ivo Heuberger Ville Liukko	6–4, 6–4
Win	3–2		Campos do Jordão, Brazil	Challenger	Hard	Aleksandar Vlaski	Franco Ferreiro Marcelo Melo	7–6(7–5), 6–4
Win	4–2		Rimouski, Canada	Challenger	Carpet	Frederik Nielsen	Jasper Smit Martijn van Haasteren	6–2, 6–4
Loss	4–3		Rimouski, Canada	Challenger	Hard	Michael Ryderstedt	Milos Raonic Vasek Pospisil	7–5, 4–6, [6–10]

Performance timeline

Singles

Tournament	2000	2001	2002	2003	2004	2005	2006	2007	2008	2009	SR	W–L	Win%
Grand Slam tournaments
Australian Open	A	Q1	3R	1R	A	Q3	Q2	1R	Q1	A	0 / 3	2–3
French Open	A	2R	1R	A	1R	Q3	1R	2R	A	A	0 / 5	2–5
Wimbledon	A	2R	1R	A	1R	Q2	1R	1R	Q2	Q2	0 / 5	1–5
US Open	Q2	2R	2R	A	2R	Q2	2R	1R	Q2	A	0 / 5	4–5
style=text-align:left	Win–loss	0–0	3–3	3–4	0–1	1–3	0–0	1–3	1–4	0–0	0–0	0 / 18	9–18
ATP Tour Masters 1000
bgcolor=efefef align=left	Indian Wells	A	A	Q2	Q2	A	A	A	1R	A	A	0 / 1	0–1
bgcolor=efefef align=left	Miami	A	Q1	1R	A	A	A	A	A	A	A	0 / 1	0–1
bgcolor=efefef align=left	Monte Carlo	A	Q1	2R	A	A	A	A	A	A	A	0 / 1	1–1
bgcolor=efefef align=left	Hamburg	A	A	A	A	A	A	A	Q1	A	NMS	0 / 0	0–0
bgcolor=efefef align=left	Rome	A	A	Q2	A	A	A	A	A	A	A	0 / 0	0–0
bgcolor=efefef align=left	Canada Masters	A	A	2R	A	A	A	Q1	A	A	A	0 / 1	1–1
bgcolor=efefef align=left	Cincinnati	A	A	Q1	A	A	A	Q1	A	A	A	0 / 0	0–-0
bgcolor=efefef align=left	Stuttgart	A	Q1	Not Held								0 / 0	0–-0
style=text-align:left	Win–loss	0–0	0–0	2–3	0–0	0–0	0–0	0–0	0–1	0–0	0–0	0 / 4	2–4

See also

• List of Denmark Davis Cup team representatives

External links

• Personal blog

Notes and References

1. Web site: Kristian Pless – Junior. 2020-10-24. www.itftennis.com.
2. Web site: Kristian Pless – ATP Tour Overview. 2020-10-24. ATP Tour.