Santiago Giraldo

Santiago Giraldo Salazar (born 27 November 1987) is a Colombian male tennis player from Pereira in Colombia. He plays on the ATP tour and represents Colombia in the Davis Cup competition. His best tournament result is reaching the final in the 2014 Barcelona Open Banc Sabadell. Giraldo's career-high singles ranking is World No. 28.

Since turning professional in 2006, Santiago Giraldo has competed in lower events at Buenos Aires, Bogotá and Asunción. He reached the final at Bogotá in October 2007 but he lost out in straight sets. Giraldo reached his first Grand Slam main draw at the 2007 French Open, where he lost to Novak Djoković.

Santiago played in his first major non-Grand Slam singles tournament on 12–15 March 2008, the Masters Series Pacific Life Open, where he lost to then World No. 2 and defending champion Rafael Nadal 6–3, 6–3, in the second round. He had beaten Werner Eschauer in the first round after coming through two rounds of qualifying. Giraldo then qualified for the 2008 Sony Ericsson Open, where he has lost in round 1. He played in the 2008 French Open after the withdrawal of home-favourite Richard Gasquet through injury, but he had lost in the first round against Florent Serra of France.

He qualified for the 2009 French Open, but lost to Denis Istomin in the first round.

At the 2010 Australian Open, he saw off Seed No. 16 Tommy Robredo 6–4, 6–2, 6–2 in the first round. However, he lost in the second round to Łukasz Kubot 4–6, 6–3, 3–6, 1–6.

At the 2010 Internazionali BNL d'Italia in Rome, a Masters 1000 event, he produced a heavy ground game to crush down 12th seed Juan Carlos Ferrero 6–0, 6–3 in the first round, followed by a 6–3, 6–2 win over Michaël Llodra in the second round. However his run was ended at the hands of World No. 10 and 7th seed Jo-Wilfried Tsonga 3–6, 4–6 in the third round.

At the 2011 Heineken Open in Auckland, New Zealand, Giraldo made it to the semi-finals, where he lost to David Ferrer 3–6, 5–7. At the 2011 Australian Open, he reached second round where he lost to Marin Čilić 3–6, 6–7, 1–6. He also reached the final of the 2011 Movistar Open where he lost to Tommy Robredo 2–6, 6–2, 6–7 despite serving for the championship at 5–3.

At the 2011 US Open, Giraldo was drawn against World No. 3 Roger Federer in the first round to whom he lost in straight sets, 4–6, 3–6, 2–6.

At the French Open he lost first round to Grega Zemlja 4–6, 1–6, 4–6.

In the first round of 2014 Heineken Open, Giraldo beat Spaniard Albert Montañés in straight sets 6-1, 7-6. His Tournament ended in the second round, losing in a thrilling 3-setter against Guillermo García-López losing 7-6(7), 2-6, 3-6. He beat Marcel Granollers and Guillermo Garcia-Lopez at Viña del Mar to reach semi-finals, where he was defeated by Leonardo Mayer. The Colombian upset Tommy Robredo at the 2014 Barcelona Open Banc Sabadell and reached semi-finals, after which he lost to Fernando Verdasco.

At the 2014 Barcelona Open Banc Sabadell, he reached his second ATP final, and the first one of an ATP World Tour 500 series. On the way, he defeated 3rd seeded Fabio Fognini, 10th seeded Philipp Kohlschreiber and 6th seeded Nicolas Almagro. He lost the tournament against Kei Nishikori in straight sets 2-6, 2-6.

In May 2014, Giraldo surprised Jo-Wilfried Tsonga in the second round of the 2014 Mutua Madrid Open beating the 11th seeded Frenchman in straight sets 6-4, 6-3. Then he achieved his first win against a top 10, after defeating the World No. 8 and two-time Grand Slam champion Andy Murray in straight sets 6-3, 6-2. He advanced to the quarterfinals but lost to Roberto Bautista-Agut.

At Wimbledon, the Colombian defeated Granollers in second round and lost to Roger Federer in third round. At Washington he was defeated by Vasek Pospisil in quarter-finals. At the US Open he was beaten by Teymuraz Gabashvili in first round. The player reached semi-finals at Shenzhen, where he lost to Tommy Robredo.

Giraldo lost to 32 seed Joao Sousa in the second round of the 2016 Australian Open. Giraldo lost in the first round of the 2016 French Open. Giraldo lost in the first round of 2016 Wimbledon Championships to Gilles Muller a match that went to 5 sets eventually Muller prevailed 15-13 in the last set. Giraldo won the Advantage Cars Prague Open, which included an impressive win in the quarter-finals against world number 26 Martin Klizan.

Giraldo entered the new tournament 2016 Los Cabos Open and he brushed past Amir Weintraub in straight sets, he then faced 4th seed Sam Querrey who he beat in straight sets. He will face wild card Pablo Carreño Busta in the quarter finals.

Ground strokes Giraldo is known to have an extremely powerful and devastating forehand that he uses to move his opponents around and end points quickly. His forehand has been likened to that of Fernando González's (incidentally his coach), with a huge back swing, coming into contact with the ball with extreme speed while flattening it out. Giraldo also uses this technique to hit balls out wide at an acute angle, which is a signature shot of his. His forehand is known to reach speeds of up to 110 mph. While his backhand is generally his weaker shot in terms of pace, he uses an identical technique, which makes his backhand flat and low. He is known for his flair in shot-making with both his forehand and backhand, often hitting balls with extreme pace or angles. His best shot is the running forehand.

Serve Giraldo's serve is not one of his strengths, but he possesses a decent flat and strong first serve and a top-spin second serve. His first serves can reach up to 120 mph.

Specialty - Return of Serves Giraldo has one of the most powerful and extreme returns of serve in the tour. Unlike traditional good returners such as Andy Murray, Novak Djokovic and Andre Agassi who use anticipation and footwork to take serves early and efficiently, Giraldo uses a different style. He usually stands further behind the base line, especially on second serves, and winds up a huge back swing on either wing and takes the ball later, injecting a sudden amount of pace. He is also adept at controlling serves such that he can hit them at acute angles with speed to finish off the point early. This makes his return of serve especially devastating to his opponents.

Weaknesses Giraldo's weaknesses include his consistency and agility. Because of his shot-making and hyper-aggressive style of play, he is more than prone to making unforced errors on his ground stroke rallies(surprisingly more often than his returns of serve). Also, because he often goes for hard, flat shots, he hits the ball into the net more often than other players. His play-style relies on dictating points and winning quickly, so he is affected by quick counter-punchers who can move him around and return his shots consistently, such as David Ferrer, Andy Murray and occasionally Rafael Nadal (although his play-style arguable counters Nadal's as well due to the fact that Nadal has a weak serve and top-spin shots that Giraldo can capitalise on). Giraldo occasionally exhibits clumsy footwork as well, and sometimes is simply not fast enough to retrieve directed or drop shots.

Singles: 2 (2 runners-up)

Outcome	No.	Date	Tournament	Surface	Opponent	Score
Runner-up	1.	6 February 2011	Movistar Open, Santiago, Chile	Clay	Tommy Robredo	2–6, 6–2, 6–7(5–7)
Runner-up	2.	27 April 2014	Barcelona Open, Barcelona, Spain	Clay	Kei Nishikori	2–6, 2–6

Doubles: 1 (1 runner-up)

Outcome	No.	Date	Tournament	Surface	Partner	Opponents	Score
Runner-up	1.	22 July 2012	Swiss Open, Gstaad, Switzerland	Clay	Robert Farah	Marcel Granollers Marc López	4–6, 6–7(9–11)

Current till 2016 French Open.

Tournament	2007	2008	2009	2010	2011	2012	2013	2014	2015	2016	2017	W–L
Grand Slam Tournaments
Australian Open	LQ	A	A	2R	2R	2R	1R	1R	2R	2R	1R	5–8
French Open	1R	1R	1R	1R	1R	3R	1R	1R	2R	1R		4–10
Wimbledon	LQ	A	Q1	1R	1R	1R	2R	3R	3R	1R		4–6
US Open	Q1	LQ	Q2	1R	1R	1R	1R	1R	1R	Q3		0–6
Win–Loss	0–1	0–1	0–1	1–4	1–4	3–4	1–4	2–4	3–4	2–2	0-1	13–30
Olympic Games
Summer Olympics	NH	A	Not Held			2R	Not Held			A		1–1
Davis Cup Singles
Americas Zone Group I	A	A	2R	2R	1R	2R	2R	2R	2R	2R		14–5
World Group	A	A	A	PO	A	A	PO	PO	PO	A		3–5
Win–Loss	0–0	0–0	1–1	3–1	2–1	3–1	2–1	1–2	2-2	3-1		17–10
ATP World Tour Masters 1000
Indian Wells Masters	A	2R	1R	A	2R	3R	1R	2R	2R	1R		5–8
Miami Masters	A	1R	LQ	2R	1R	2R	2R	1R	3R	2R		5–8
Monte Carlo Masters	A	A	A	A	1R	A	A	A	A	Q2		0–1
Madrid Masters	A	A	A	2R	2R	1R	2R	QF	1R	1R		6–7
Rome Masters	A	A	A	3R	1R	1R	1R	1R	1R	Q1		2–6
Canada Masters	LQ	A	LQ	1R	A	A	A	1R	A			0–2
Cincinnati Masters	A	A	LQ	1R	A	1R	A	1R	Q2			0–3
Shanghai Masters	NMS		A	LQ	3R	A	1R	1R	A			2–3
Paris Masters	A	A	A	2R	1R	A	2R	2R	A			3–4
Win–Loss	0–0	1–2	0–1	5–6	4–7	3–5	3–6	5–8	1–4	1–3		23–43
Career statistics
Titles–Finals	0–0	0–0	0–0	0–0	0–1	0–0	0–0	0–1	0–0	0–0	0–0	0–2
Year End Ranking	538	163	107	64	55	57	69	32	70	91

This table is current through Australian Open 2016.

Tournament	2010	2011	2012	2013	2014	2015	2016	W–L
Grand Slam Tournaments
Australian Open	1R	1R	1R	1R	1R	2R	1R	1–7
French Open	1R	1R	1R	A	1R	2R		1–5
Wimbledon	1R	1R	A	1R	1R	1R		0–5
US Open	1R	1R	A	A	2R	2R		2–4
Win–Loss	0–4	0–4	0–2	0–2	1-3	3-4	0-1	4–21
Olympic Games
Summer Olympics	Not Held		1R	Not Held				0–1

In 2014 Giraldo started dating Romanian tennis player Sorana Cîrstea