The 34-year-old Austrian, announced his retirement a few months ago but has presumably played his last professional match this week in Kitzbuhel, along with Thassilo Haun lost in the first round to D.Bracciali/S.Gonzalez. I had an opportunity to follow his career actually from the very beginning because I saw him in Kitzbuhel fourteen years ago where he participated in his 4th main-level event and achieved the first serious success advancing to the quarter-finals. I’d say that the left-handed Stefan was an underachiever, physically and technically very similar player to Marcelo Rios. Koubek showed a big potential twice, as he won a big tournament in Doha not dropping a set (2003) and one year earlier reaching the Australian Open quarter-final, making in the first round one of the most amazing comebacks in Grand Slams – he was losing to Cyril Saulnier 0-6, 1-6, *1:4 (15/40) to win in five sets saving a match point on serve in the 3rd set tie-break. Five years later in Sopot, he made another astonishing comeback, ousting Agustin Calleri despite a 0-6, *1:5 deficit! In that match he saved two match points on return in each winning set!! I guess there are two other interesting curiosities about him:
– lost four 5-setters being close to win the last two sets #
– as the only player in the previous decade was defaulted twice (Roland Garros 2000, Metz 2007)
Stefan Koubek in numbers (singles):
3 titles (2 Challengers), 3 finals (5 CH):
Titles:
98 – Alpirsbach, Lima
99 – Atlanta (16)
00 – Delray Beach (39)
03 – Doha (116)
Finals:
99 – Bournemouth, 06 – Zagreb, 07 – Chennai
Best Grand Slam result: Australian Open (2002, quarter-final)
