Saturday, September 5, 2009

David Ferrer Professional Tennis Player

David Ferrer Ern (born April 2, 1982 in Xàbia, Alicante, Spain) is a Spanish professional tennis player who lives in Valencia, Spain who is currently #6 in the ATP Rankings and the second-highest ranked Spaniard behind World No. 1 Rafael Nadal. He turned professional in 2000. Ferrer is known as a clay court specialist, although he has had success on hard courts as well, as evidenced by his semi-final appearances at the 2007 US Open and 2011 Australian Open. He was part of the Spain Davis Cup team that won the finals in 2008 and 2009. He was also runner-up at the Tennis Masters Cup in 2007. He first achieved a top–10 ranking in 2006 and reached a career high ranking of No. 4.

Ferrer was born in Alicante, but he moved to Gandia at age 13, followed two years later by a move to Barcelona to attend the Catalan Tennis Federation. He spent nine months at Equelite, Juan Carlos Ferrero's Academy in Villena before moving back to Xàbia while practicing in Denia.

Ferrer has said that when he was young, if he did not practice hard enough, his coach, Javier Piles, would lock him up in a completely dark ball closet, which was 2m x 2m in dimensions, for several hours, sometimes giving him only a piece of bread and a bit of water for his stay in the closet. Ferrer has said that he did spend time quite often in that closet. At the age of 17, he felt he was fed up with tennis and sitting in the closet, and went to work at a construction site, but after a week there he returned to the club asking the coach if he could still remain at the club and play tennis. As of 2011, he is still coached by Piles.

Ferrer turned professional in 2000, finishing as World No. 419, winning in Poland F1 and Spain F3 finishing runner-up in Spain F1. 2001 was not a particularly good year for him. He won his first career Challenger title in Sopot and reached the SF at Manerbio the following week. He also reached the semifinals in Spain F15 and Spain F16.