Nicolás Lapentti

Lapentti began playing tennis at the age of six.

He first came to the tennis world's attention an outstanding junior player who won the Orange Bowl in Florida in 1994, when he also captured the junior doubles titles at the French Open (partnering with Gustavo Kuerten) and the US Open.

Lapentti turned professional in 1995 and won his first top-level singles title later that year at Bogotá.

In 1999, Lapentti was a semi-finalist at the Australian Open, defeating Thomas Johansson, Magnus Norman, Mikael Tillström, Andrew Ilie and Karol Kučera before losing to Thomas Enqvist. He also won two tour singles titles that year and reached his career-high singles ranking of World No. 6 that November.

In 2002, Lapentti won his fifth tour singles title at St Pölten, beating Fernando Vicente in straight sets in the final. In the second round of that tournament, his rival, Irakli Labadze, faced four match points but was not able to convert any of them. Lapentti finally won that tough match 5–7, 7–6(1), 7–6(6).

His brother, Giovanni, is also a professional tennis player, reaching a career-high singles ranking of World No. 110 in May 2005. In addition, another brother, Leonardo, has been active at the lower levels of professional tennis.

In the Cincinnati Open 2008, Lapentti defeated David Ferrer in second round, Fernando Verdasco in the third round and faced No. 2 seed Rafael Nadal in the quarterfinals where he lost in straight sets. With that victory over Lapentti, Nadal clinched the World No. 1 ranking for the first time.

In his last participation in a Grand Slam, he unfortunately had to retire against Novak Djokovic in the first round of the 2009 French Open.

In 2017, it was announced that Nicolás would compete in the Ecuador Open doubles draw alongside brother Giovanni, playing in the final event of his career.

He has also been a member of the Ecuador Davis Cup team since 1993. Representing his country in Davis Cup since he was 17, and won the deciding rubber against Great Britain (July 2000) to put Ecuador in the World Group. Moreover, he owns the Davis Cup record for most matches won in five sets, with a total of 13 victories.

Set up the Nicolás Lapentti Foundation in late 2000 to help bring tennis to the underprivileged, and develop future champions. Other interests include soccer and reading Robert Ludlum books.

Singles: 12 (5 titles, 7 runner-ups)

Result	W–L	Date	Tournament	Tier	Surface	Opponent	Score
Win	1–0	000000001995-09-01-0000Sep 1995	Bogotá Open, Colombia	World Series	Clay	Miguel Tobón	2–6, 6–1, 6–4
Loss	1–1	000000001996-09-01-0000Sep 1996	Bogotá Open, Colombia	World Series	Clay	Thomas Muster	7–6(8–6), 2–6, 3–6
Loss	1–2	000000001997-10-01-0000Oct 1997	Bogotá Open, Colombia	World Series	Clay	Francisco Clavet	3–6, 3–6
Loss	1–3	000000001999-07-01-0000Jul 1999	Swiss Open, Switzerland	World Series	Clay	Albert Costa	6–7(4–7), 3–6, 4–6
Win	2–3	000000001999-08-01-0000Aug 1999	Indianapolis Tennis Championships, US	Champ. Series	Hard	Vince Spadea	4–6, 6–4, 6–4
Win	3–3	000000001999-10-01-0000Oct 1999	Grand Prix de Tennis de Lyon, France	World Series	Carpet (i)	Lleyton Hewitt	6–3, 6–2
Loss	3–4	000000002000-10-01-0000Oct 2000	Japan Open, Japan	Intl. Gold	Hard	Sjeng Schalken	4–6, 6–3, 1–6
Win	4–4	000000002001-07-01-0000Jul 2001	Austrian Open Kitzbühel, Austria	Intl. Gold	Clay	Albert Costa	1–6, 6–4, 7–5, 7–5
Loss	4–5	000000002002-02-01-0000Feb 2002	Chile Open, Chile	International	Clay	Fernando González	3–6, 7–6(7–5), 6–7(4–7)
Win	5–5	000000002002-05-01-0000May 2002	St. Pölten, Austria	International	Clay	Fernando Vicente	7–5, 6–4
Loss	5–6	000000002003-07-01-0000Jul 2003	Swedish Open, Sweden	International	Clay	Mariano Zabaleta	3–6, 4–6
Loss	5–7	000000002006-09-01-0000Sep 2006	Campionati Internazionali di Sicilia, Italy	International	Clay	Filippo Volandri	7–5, 1–6, 3–6

Doubles: 7 (3 titles, 4 runner-ups)

Result	W–L	Date	Tournament	Tier	Surface	Partner	Opponents	Score
Loss	0–1	000000001996-09-01-0000Sep 1996	Bogotá Open, Colombia	World Series	Clay	Pablo Campana	Nicolás Pereira David Rikl	3–6, 6–7
Win	1–1	000000001997-08-01-0000Aug 1997	Dutch Open, Netherlands	World Series	Clay	Paul Kilderry	Andrew Kratzmann Libor Pimek	3–6, 7–5, 7–6
Win	2–1	000000001997-10-01-0000Oct 1997	Mexican Open, Mexico	World Series	Clay	Daniel Orsanic	Luis Herrera Mariano Sánchez	4–6, 6–3, 7–6
Loss	2–2	000000001997-11-01-0000Nov 1997	Chile Open, Chile	World Series	Clay	Julián Alonso	Hendrik Jan Davids Andrew Kratzmann	6–7, 7–5, 4–6
Win	3–2	000000001999-01-01-0000Jan 1999	Adelaide International, Australia	World Series	Hard	Gustavo Kuerten	Jim Courier Patrick Galbraith	6–4, 6–4
Loss	3–3	000000001999-05-01-0000May 1999	Prague Open, Czech Republic	World Series	Clay	Mark Keil	Martin Damm Radek Štěpánek	0–6, 2–6
Loss	3–4	000000002004-02-01-0000Feb 2004	Chile Open, Chile	International	Clay	Martín Rodríguez	Juan Ignacio Chela Gastón Gaudio	6–7(2–7), 6–7(3–7)

Singles