- published: 30 Sep 2013
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Max Mirnyi (Belarusian: Максім Мікалаевіч Мірны; Russian: Максим Николаевич Мирный; born 6 July 1977 in Minsk) is a professional tennis player from Belarus.
Today Mirnyi is a doubles specialist, but he also enjoyed a good singles career, finishing in the top 50 in the world for seven straight years, as well as representing Belarus in Davis Cup competition since April 1994, where he holds a record of 47 wins and 27 losses in 35 ties played. He holds eight Grand Slam titles: men's doubles in the 2000 and 2002 US Open and in the 2005, 2006 and 2011 French Open; and mixed doubles in the 1998 and 2007 U.S. Opens and 1998 Wimbledon. He earned the nickname "The Beast" during his time on tour. Mirnyi has played with a host of doubles partners, namely forming long-term partnerships with Mahesh Bhupathi, Jonas Björkman, Lleyton Hewitt, Jamie Murray, Andy Ram, and Daniel Nestor, and short-term partnerships with other top competitors on the doubles tour and the top singles tennis player Roger Federer.
Roger Federer (German pronunciation: [ˈfeːdəʁɐ]) (born 8 August 1981) is a Swiss professional tennis player who held the ATP No. 1 position for a record 237 consecutive weeks from 2 February 2004 to 18 August 2008. Federer has occupied the #1 ranking for 285 overall weeks, one week short of the record 286 weeks held by Pete Sampras. As of 28 May 2012, he is ranked World No. 3. Federer has won a men's record 16 Grand Slam singles titles. He is one of seven male players to capture the career Grand Slam and one of three (with Andre Agassi and Rafael Nadal) to do so on three different surfaces (clay, grass, and hard courts). He is the only male player in tennis history to have reached the title match of each Grand Slam tournament at least five times and also the final at each of the nine ATP Masters 1000 Tournaments. Many sports analysts, tennis critics, and former and current players consider Federer to be the greatest tennis player of all time.
Federer has appeared in an unprecedented 23 career Grand Slam tournament finals, including a men's record ten in a row, and appeared in 18 of 19 finals from the 2005 Wimbledon Championships through the 2010 Australian Open, the lone exception being the 2008 Australian Open. He holds the record of reaching the semifinals or better of 23 consecutive Grand Slam tournaments over five and a half years, from the 2004 Wimbledon Championships through the 2010 Australian Open. At the 2012 Australian Open, he reached a record 31st consecutive Grand Slam quarterfinal. During the course of his run at the 2012 French Open in Roland Garros, Federer eclipsed Jimmy Connors long standing record of 233 match wins in Grand Slam tournaments when he defeated Adrian Ungur in a second round match.