Mikhail Youzhny Announces Sad News

After a 6-2, 6-0 victory over the American Emil Reinberg in the Atlanta Open in the opening round, 36-year-old Mikhail Youzhny announced his retirement from tennis. The Russian embarked upon his tennis journey in the year 1999. And the next week he would bid farewell to his professional career at the ATP Saint Petersburg event. The present World Number 110, Youzhny reached his singles career-high ranking of Number 8 in 2008. Throughout his career, he has swept ten ATP singles titles and nine titles in doubles. In addition to that, Youzhny is a two-time Davis Cup champion in the year 2002 and 2006.

Youzhny has twice reached the semifinals at the US Open. He once made it to the quarter-final of the other three Grand Slams. His last Grand Slam event was this year’s US Open. He was forced to retire from the first round match against Marcos Baghdatis from Cyprus. And the previous year he lost to Roger Federer in a five-setter second-round match. The Moscow inhabitant tennis professional, Youzhny was considering his retirement in the year 2015 in Moscow. However, he continued to dwell on the tennis courts as he produced some fruitful results.

The Russian professional is occupied post his retirement and as he says, “I can’t say that I need time to rest, I’m not tired. I have already three projects to start working on them: academy in Novokuznetsk, academy on the Gold Coast and the project about physical education for youngsters”. Undoubtedly he will be working towards educating the budding tennis players and produce prodigies.

The 2004 Saint Petersburg champion Youzhny will be playing in the Russian ATP event for the 17th time. He will meet Mirza Basic in the opening of the  Saint Petersburg event. Also, twice his was the runner-up in Saint Petersburg. When he won his title at the 2002 Mercedes Cup held in Stuttgart, Germany. “I didn’t think I had a chance – this is my proudest moment in tennis”, Youzhny said in his victory speech after winning the maiden title. 

Towards the end of this year’s season, Gilles Muller will end his career. The 45-year-old Daniel Nestor will retire after his tournament in Toronto. Earlier this year, the Australian Casey Dellacqua also retired from tennis.