TAG: “An eagle dropped a fish on the court once in Savannah.”
One of the most respected grinders of the ATP Tour, “Iron” Mike shares insights and memories of a remarkable 13-year ATP career – which has endured numerous surgeries, grand slam glory & agony, countless mileage by foot and air – but is still going quite strong…
Status: ATP #81. Winner of 11 Challenger and 8 Futures events. Has career wins against Berdych, Bruguera, Verkerk, Dent, Hanescu, Malisse, Mahut and Sanguinetti. His highest ATP ranking was #60 in 2007. Has earned over $1,000,000 in career prize money.
Tennis Inspirations: “Growing up I loved watching Andre Agassi play, he was my hero. The way he could take the ball early. Hit everything as hard as he could. Inspirations for me – are my wife, my parents, they both worked really hard, never had that much growing up and had to work hard for everything. Like I do when I play on the court. I have to work for everything.”
First Tennis Memory: “Gotta be hitting on the garage when I was five years old. Wood racquet.”
Nicknames: “Mussell, Wheels, Mighty Mouse, Iron Mike.”
Funny Tennis Memory: “Playing a match one time, French Open juniors (1994), my opponent Kevin Kim, hit a serve and it hit a bird, it was flying across the court. Unfortunately it killed the bird. Another time I played a Challenger and the fish dropped out of the sky – in the middle of the court – and it was an eagle carrying the fish from the ocean. And dropped it in the middle of the point during the match (Savannah, GA).”
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