One of the best players to never win a major is American Todd Martin. Twice he fell short in Grand Slam finals, the 1994 Australian Open final vs Pete Sampras 76 64 64 and the 1999 US Open final vs Andre Agassi 64 67 67 63 62.
Martin did eight career ATP singles titles, compiled a pro record of 411-234, and achieved a career best ranking of 4 in the world.
The current CEO of the International Tennis Hall of Fame, Martin shared his First and Last pro match memories while jogging with an umbrella in the rain to catch the US Open courtesy bus back to Manhattan…
FIRST: My First match was at the Open against Jean-Philippe Fleurian in 1990 here (67 36 67).
LAST: My last professional match was here against Fabrice Santoro in the first round (46 64 64 75) in 2004.
MEMORABLE MIDDLE CAREER MATCHES: One match that comes to mind is against Greg Rusedski in Davis Cup in Birmingham, England. Played awfully well. And I just sort of got off to a good start and went. Francisco Clavet in I think 1993 maybe at the French Open, I was up 6-0, 6-0, 3-0 and I was hard-pressed to play much better than that. (That’s a Spaniard on clay, what happened?) Well, it was a bad match-up for him in the first place, and then I was on and he was off. And I also played well against especially in a big situation against Pioline here in the semifinals in 1999. I won in straight sets. Again, a little bit of it has to do with how well the guy on the other side, it’s hard to be in the zone and have the other guy on the other side of the court playing well. A little bit of it is dictated by the opponent. But all three of those matches were easier than it should have been.
Hall of Fame Newport · Todd Martin · US Open
