Nicolas Kiefer retires from tennis
Nicolas Kiefer, the silver medalist at the 2004 Summer Olympics, has turned his back on his tennis days for good. The German player confirmed his retirement, effective immediately, in an interview published on Thursday.
The 32 year old tennis player cited his reason for quitting the glamorous world of tennis as wanting to spend more time with his family. Kiefer recently became a father to a baby girl and thinks it’s about time he puts down his racquet.
However, the player isn’t really leaving the world of sports all together. He plans to play football as an over 32 player with the club Hanover 96. The player is also currently involved in sports management studies.
“It is time to start a new chapter in life after 15 years. Come on Kiwi, you had a super career, met many great people, saw many countries and learnt a lot. It's enough. Now you are a father and have a daughter,” says Kiefer about his decision to quit.
Nicolas Kiefer’s tennis journey has been nothing short of a roller coaster ride. There was a point in time when he was hailed as the successor of Boris Becker, the tennis legend. He was the extremely successful in 1995 as the junior champion at both the
Australian and US Open. 2000 saw him reaching the peak of his career with a ranking of Number 4 on the ATP listings. In 2004 he won the silver medal for the men’s doubles matches, while partnering with Rainer Schuettler, at the Summer Olympics.
Perhaps what the player is best known for is the infamous incident of 25 January 2006. It happened during the quarter-finals of the Australian Open, when he was playing against Sebastien Grosjean. During the fifth set of the marathon of a match, Kiefer’s
racquet flew right out of his hands mid-point. Grosjean lost this point by hitting the ball right into the net and claimed that Kiefer's flying racquet was to blame. However, the umpire Carlos Bernardes refused to accept the claims stating that he did not
believe the act was intentional. Grosjean’s claim was further weakened by the fact that he had already taken the shot, before the racquet came flying out of Kiefer’s hands. This match eventually went in Kiefer’s favour but he was beaten out of the semis by
the then champion Roger Federer.
Throughout his initial career Nicolas Kiefer showed great promise. However, as he went on, frequent injuries kept the player from ever reaching his full potential. He was currently ranked Number 722nd in the world.
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