Alexander Volkov (tennis)

Alexander Vladimirovich Volkov (Russian: Алекса́ндр Влади́мирович Во́лков listenⓘ; 3 March 1967 – 19 October 2019[1]) was a Russian professional tennis player.

In this name that follows Eastern Slavic naming conventions, the patronymic is Vladimirovich and the family name is Volkov.
Alexander Volkov
Алекса́ндр Во́лков
Country (sports) Soviet Union
 Russia
Born(1967-03-03)3 March 1967
Kaliningrad, Soviet Union
Died19 October 2019(2019-10-19) (aged 52)
Kaliningrad, Russia
Height1.88 m (6 ft 2 in)
Turned pro1988
Retired1998
PlaysLeft-handed (two-handed backhand)
Prize money$3,362,840
Singles
Career record303–255
Career titles3
Highest rankingNo. 14 (23 August 1993)
Grand Slam singles results
Australian Open4R (1994)
French Open3R (1990, 1992)
Wimbledon4R (1987, 1990, 1991, 1994)
US OpenSF (1993)
Other tournaments
Grand Slam Cup1R (1992, 1993)
Olympic Games1R (1988)
Doubles
Career record32–55
Career titles0
Highest rankingNo. 136 (9 October 1989)
Grand Slam doubles results
Wimbledon2R (1988)
US Open1R (1989)
Other doubles tournaments
Olympic Games1R (1988)
Team competitions
Davis CupF (1994, 1995)
Last updated on: 15 September 2022.

Tennis career

Volkov finished runner-up in three tournaments over 1989 and 1990; in the latter year he defeated World No. 1 Stefan Edberg in straight sets in the first round of the US Open. Volkov won his first top-level professional singles title in 1991 at Milan. At Wimbledon that year, he lost a close match in the fourth round to the eventual tournament champion Michael Stich, 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 4–5 in the final set. With Volkov serving for the match, at 5-4 and 30–30, Stich hit a seemingly-wide shot that caught the net and, instead of going out, looped over Volkov's head and back into play for a winner. What could have been 40-30, and match-point for Volkov, instead became a vital break-point opportunity for Stich at 30-40, that he immediately converted. Stich subsequently won the next two games and the match.[2]

Volkov was runner-up in three tournaments in 1992 and won his second title in 1993 in Auckland. Later in 1993, Volkov defeated Björn Borg in the first round of the Kremlin Cup in Moscow, 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, Kevin Ullyett, Amos Mansdorf, Chuck Adams and Thomas Muster before losing to Pete Sampras.

Volkov was part of the Russian team that reached the final of the Davis Cup in 1994. He won singles rubbers over Patrick Rafter of Australia in the first round and Michael Stich of Germany in the semifinals. However, he lost both his singles rubbers in the final as Russia was defeated by Sweden 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)
Legend
Grand Slam Tournaments (0–0)
ATP World Tour Finals (0–0)
ATP Masters Series (0–0)
ATP Championship Series (0–0)
ATP World Series (3–8)
Finals by surface
Hard (1–3)
Clay (0–0)
Grass (0–1)
Carpet (2–4)
Finals by setting
Outdoors (1–4)
Indoors (2–4)
Result W–L Date Tournament Tier Surface Opponent Score
Loss 0–1 Feb 1989 Milan, Italy Grand Prix Carpet Germany Boris Becker 1–6, 2–6
Loss 0–2 Jan 1990 Rosmalen, Netherlands World Series Grass Israel Amos Mansdorf 3–6, 6–7
Loss 0–3 Oct 1990 Berlin, Germany World Series Carpet Haiti Ronald Agénor 6–4, 4–6, 6–7(8–10)
Win 1–3 Feb 1991 Milan, Italy World Series Carpet Italy Cristiano Caratti 6–1, 7–5
Loss 1–4 Jan 1992 Wellington, New Zealand World Series Hard United States Jeff Tarango 1–6, 0–6, 3–6
Loss 1–5 Mar 1992 Rotterdam, Netherlands World Series Carpet Germany Boris Becker 6–7(9–11), 6–4, 2–6
Loss 1–6 Apr 1992 Johannesburg, South Africa World Series Hard United States Aaron Krickstein 4–6, 4–6
Win 2–6 Jan 1993 Auckland, New Zealand World Series Hard United States MaliVai Washington 7–6(7–2), 6–4
Loss 2–7 Jan 1994 Adelaide, Australia World Series Hard Russia Yevgeny Kafelnikov 4–6, 3–6
Win 3–7 Nov 1994 Moscow, Russia World Series Carpet United States Chuck Adams 6–2, 6–4
Loss 3–8 Feb 1997 Shanghai, China World Series Carpet Slovakia Ján Krošlák 2–6, 6–7(2–7)

Doubles: 3 (3 runner-ups)
Legend
Grand Slam Tournaments (0–0)
ATP World Tour Finals (0–0)
ATP Masters Series (0–0)
ATP Championship Series (0–0)
ATP World Series (0–3)
Finals by surface
Hard (0–2)
Clay (0–0)
Grass (0–0)
Carpet (0–1)
Finals by setting
Outdoors (0–2)
Indoors (0–1)
Result W–L Date Tournament Tier Surface Partnet Opponents Score
Loss 0–1 Nov 1991 Moscow, Russia World Series Carpet Russia Andrey Cherkasov Germany Eric Jelen
Germany Carl-Uwe Steeb		 4–6, 6–7
Loss 0–2 Jan 1993 Auckland, New Zealand World Series Hard Austria Alex Antonitsch Canada Grant Connell
United States Patrick Galbraith		 3–6, 6–7
Loss 0–3 Aug 1996 Long Island, United States World Series Hard Germany Hendrik Dreekmann United States Luke Jensen
United States Murphy Jensen		 3–6, 6–7

ATP Challenger and ITF Futures finals

Singles: 1 (1–0)
Legend
ATP Challenger (1–0)
ITF Futures (0–0)
Finals by surface
Hard (1–0)
Clay (0–0)
Grass (0–0)
Carpet (0–0)
Result W–L Date Tournament Tier Surface Opponent Score
Win 1–0 Nov 1996 Aachen, Germany Challenger Hard Germany David Prinosil 6–3, 7–6


Performance timeline
Key
W  F  SF QF #R RR Q# DNQ A NH
(W) winner; (F) finalist; (SF) semifinalist; (QF) quarterfinalist; (#R) rounds 4, 3, 2, 1; (RR) round-robin stage; (Q#) qualification round; (DNQ) did not qualify; (A) absent; (NH) not held; (SR) strike rate (events won / competed); (W–L) win–loss record.

Singles
Tournament198619871988198919901991199219931994199519961997SRW–LWin %
Grand Slam tournaments
Australian Open NH A 1R A 2R 1R 3R 3R 4R 1R 1R A 0 / 8 8–8  – 
French Open A A 1R A 3R 1R 3R 1R 2R 1R 1R 2R 0 / 9 6–9 40%
Wimbledon Q1 4R 2R 1R 4R 4R 3R 2R 4R 3R 3R 1R 0 / 11 20–11 65%
US Open A 1R A 3R 2R 2R QF SF 1R 3R 3R 1R 0 / 10 17–10 63%
Win–loss 0–0 3–2 1–3 2–2 7–4 4–4 10–4 8–4 7–4 4–4 4–4 1–3 0 / 38 51–38 57%
National Representation
Summer Olympics NH 1R Not Held A Not Held A NH 0 / 1 0–1 0%
Year-end Championships
Grand Slam Cup Did not qualify 1R 1R Did not qualify 0 / 2 0–2 0%
ATP Masters Series
Indian Wells A A A 1R 1R 2R A SF QF A A A 0 / 5 8–5 62%
Miami A 1R 3R 3R 4R 2R A 2R 2R A A A 0 / 7 7–7 50%
Monte Carlo A A A A A 3R 2R A A A A A 0 / 2 3–2 60%
Hamburg A A A 1R 1R 3R 1R A 1R 1R 1R Q1 0 / 7 2–7 22%
Rome A A A A 2R 2R 1R A 2R 1R A A 0 / 5 3–5 38%
Canada A A A A 1R A A QF 1R 1R A A 0 / 4 2–4 33%
Cincinnati A A 1R 1R A A 2R 3R 1R A A A 0 / 5 3–5 38%
Paris A 2R A A 1R QF 3R 2R 1R 2R A A 0 / 7 6–7 46%
Win–loss 0–0 1–2 2–2 2–4 6–6 8–6 2–5 8–5 4–7 1–4 0–1 0–0 0 / 42 34–42 45%

Junior Grand Slam finals

Doubles: 1 (1 runner-up)
Result Year Tournament Surface Partner Opponents Score
Loss1985French OpenClayGeorgia (country) Vladimer GabrichidzeCzech Republic Petr Korda
Czech Republic Cyril Suk		6–4, 0–6, 5–7

Top 10 wins
Season19871988198919901991199219931994199519961997Total
Wins0023151410017
# Player Rank Event Surface Rd Score VR
1989
1. Czech Republic Miloslav Mečíř 8 Davis Cup, Prague, Czechoslovakia Carpet (i) RR 6–2, 6–7, 6–0 64
2. Switzerland Jakob Hlasek 8 Milan, Italy Carpet (i) 2R 7–6, 7–5 61
1990
3. United States Tim Mayotte 10 Miami, USA Hard 2R 6–1, 6–4 100
4. Sweden Stefan Edberg 1 US Open, New York, USA Hard 1R 6–3, 7–6, 6–2 52
5. Spain Emilio Sánchez 8 Stockholm, Sweden Carpet (i) 2R 7–5, 6–3 34
1991
6. Czech Republic Karel Nováček 9 Basel, Switzerland Hard (i) QF 6–1, 6–7, 6–3 24
1992
7. Czech Republic Karel Nováček 10 Milan, Italy Carpet (i) 1R 7–6, 7–6 25
8. United States Ivan Lendl 7 Stuttgart, Germany Carpet (i) 2R 7–6, 5–7, 6–1 28
9. France Guy Forget 6 Stuttgart, Germany Carpet (i) QF 6–4, 6–4 28
10. Croatia Goran Ivanišević 5 US Open, New York, USA Hard 3R 6–4, 6–0, 6–3 20
11. Sweden Stefan Edberg 3 Tokyo, Japan Carpet (i) QF 6–3, 3–6, 7–5 17
1993
12. United States Pete Sampras 2 Indian Wells, United States Hard 3R 7–5, 6–4 22
1994
13. United States Michael Chang 8 Indian Wells, United States Hard 3R 6–4, 1–6, 6–3 18
14. Germany Michael Stich 2 World Team Cup, Düsseldorf, Germany Clay RR 6–4, 7–6 22
15. Germany Michael Stich 2 Davis Cup, Hamburg, Germany Hard RR 7–5, 1–6, 7–6, 6–4 42
16. Spain Alberto Berasategui 8 Ostrava, Czech Republic Carpet (i) 1R 7–6, 6–4 44
1995
17. Spain Sergi Bruguera 4 Stuttgart, Germany Carpet (i) 1R 6–4, 2–3 ret. 40

References
  1. James Buddell (19 October 2019). "Alexander Volkov: 1967–2019". Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP).
  2. Philip, Robert (29 June 2007). "Recent recollection by Stich of the manner of his victory over Volkov". The Daily Telegraph. London. Retrieved 23 April 2010.
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