Alejandro Falla (born 14 November 1983 in Cali,
Colombia) is a professional male tennis player from
Colombia. He turned pro in 2000, plays left-handed,
weighs 169 lb (76 kg) and measures 6'1" (185 cm). At
the 2006 Wimbledon tournament, Falla upset 9th seed
Nikolay Davydenko and at the 2007 Sony Ericsson Open
he beat 9th seed Tommy Haas in straight sets. He
reached the semifinals of the Grand Prix de Tennis
de Lyon in 2007, beating players such as the 5th
seed Ivan Ljubičić to get there. On March 3, 2008,
Falla achieved his career high of #79.
The Colombian became the first player from his
country to break into the Top 100 of the ATP
Rankings since Mauricio Hadad in 1996. In 2006,
Alejandro qualified a career-high six times into the
main draw of ATP level tournaments. In his second
tournament of the year, he reached the final of the
Mexico City Challenger. He then went on to earn
points for his country in April Davis Cup zonal tie
against Paraguay Davis Team. Then later in April he
won the Bogota Challenger. At Roland Garros he
reached the second round after defeating Justin
Gimelstob, though he lost to Roger Federer in the
second round of the tournament. Then a few weeks
later at Wimbledon he managed to beat Nikolay
Davydenko in a four set thriller. His victory over
Davydenko was his first win over a Top 10 player,
and a first ever for a Colombian player. Though, he
was then defeated in the second round by Philipp
Kohlschreiber in another four set match. He then
reached the second round in the U.S. Open. In the
first round he beat Juan Martín del Potro in four
sets before being defeated by Dmitry Tursunov in
straight sets.
