Dominik Hrbatý

Born: January 4, 1978 in Bratislava (Bratislavský kraj in Czechoslovakia)
Height: 1.82 m
Plays: Right-handed (two-handed backhand)

The youngest Top 100 player of 1996 as the “King of Challengers”. The 18-year-old Slovak began that year ranked No. 315 participating in Egyptian and Croatian Satellites, he then won two Challengers, losing finals in four others. When he entered the Rod Laver Arena at the Australian Open ’97 to play a fourth round match against Pete Sampras, he was virtually unknown. He shocked the world though – not only did he outace one of the best servers in history, he also almost beat him in five sets, squandering three mini-match points in two different games! All of a sudden, he was a man to watch. Two months later, when he reached the fourth round of another big event (Key Biscayne), he said he would be a better server than Sampras! That cocky sentence contrasted with Hrbatý’s mundane on-and-off court attitude. Once, he said that he enjoyed the most in his leisure time… simply fishing in remote areas. I passed him once in Sopot ’03 at the city’s main avenue – he was walking in casual clothes with an obscure carrier bag hanging on his shoulder. No one outside the tennis world could guess that this guy had earned seven million dollars on the court…
Considering his style, I would put him in the same group with Thomas Enqvist as far as guys born in the 70s are concerned: two bold servers (the Slovak was tossing the ball unusually high) from the chilly area of Europe (encouraging to play indoors more in the formative years), quite prone to double faulting, eager to play the majority of points from the baseline, operating very close to it, endowed with very hard and flat strokes off both sides. Hrbatý was a slightly weaker version of Enqvist overall, but achieved more on clay courts, including arguably two career-best results: the Roland Garros semifinal in 1999 (a quite unfortunate four-set defeat to Andre Agassi), and a final in Monte Carlo ’00 in which he succumbed to Cédric Pioline. Hrbatý was coached at the time by a fellow Slovak – Marian Vajda – the future coach of Novak Ðoković.
Analyzing Hrbatý’s scorelines, I may argue that he was a different animal playing in the ‘best of five’ formula. His great physical preparation helped him a lot in winning many complicated four- and five-setters. Of course, it contributed to the fact that he nearly alone won the Davis Cup for Slovakia in 2005 (a 6-1 record in singles with two wins in the final vs Croatia). But in the ‘best of three’ matches, he was that guy you generally couldn’t have counted on, especially when it came to – let’s say – “3:4” in the 3rd set. Nevertheless, he won as many as three matches in the deciding tie-break against Marat Safin (the Hopman Cup final ’09 is one of them – Hrbatý triumphed twice in Perth with different women as partners: Daniela Hantuchová and Dominika Cibulková). But Safin was completely unpredictable when drama and additional tension were involved. Hrbatý loved to play Down Under in January because he felt stronger than his opponents after solid preparation in December the previous year. Following several years with a vibe of underachievement, the perception was in 2004 that a breakthrough year lied in front of him as he collected back-to-back titles (Auckland-Adelaide). He lost an 11-match winning streak after being easily outplayed by Sébastien Grosjean in Melbourne, and the successful period quickly evaporated.
At the end of 2006 when he seemed to be entering the twilight of his career, he almost did what a few other significant players had done around 30, namely get a title which would fulfill his career. At Paris-Bercy he luckily avoided playing in the first round, and handily won four matches. Despite being fresh, he was dismantled by Nikolay Davydenko in the final. Following the final in France, he was struggling with an elbow injury, and poor results in the years 2007-08 caused his decision to return to the Challenger circuit, interspersed with qualifying rounds to the ATP tournaments. However, trying for a few years, he didn’t regain his former self-confidence at the lower levels, and decided to quit in 2012, two and a half years after his last ATP event (he briefly returned in 2013, only to play two exotic Futures events).
Given his impressive five-set record, certainly he could be expected to play another major semifinal in the first decade of the new millennium; he failed thrice in the night session quarterfinals though, at the Australian Open ’01 and US Open ’04 he was strangely deflated in the fourth sets against serve-and-volley specialists. Trivia: he has a positive H2H record against the greatest players of the 2000s, 2-1 against Roger Federer and 3-1 against Rafael Nadal, having also defeated the greatest of the 90s (Sampras & Agassi).

Career record: 359-318 [ 304 events ]
Career titles: 6
Highest ranking: No. 12
Best GS results:
Australian Open (quarterfinal 2001, 2005)
Roland Garros (semifinal 1999)
US Open (quarterfinal 2004)
World Team Cup champion 2000
Hopman Cup champion 2005 and 2009