Alex Kuznetsov (born 5 February 1987) is an American
tennis player, accomplished in junior tennis. Some
consider him to be among the "next wave" of American
tennis players, along with other young American
players such as Sam Querrey, John Isner, and Jesse
Levine.
Some hope that young players such as Kuznetsov,
Isner, Levine, and Querrey can provide a boost to
American tennis, with Pete Sampras and Andre Agassi
retired and "aging" American tennis players Andy
Roddick, James Blake, and Mardy Fish. Though born in
Ukraine, his family moved to the United States of
America when he was three, and settled just outside
of Philadelphia. He still resides there, in
Richboro, PA.
In his ATP Tour Grand Slam career, he played singles
in the US Open in 2006, losing to 14th seeded Tommy
Haas, and the 2007 Australian Open, advancing to the
second round defeating Australian Peter Luczak
before losing to fellow American James Blake, 6-4,
6-1, 6-2. Kuznetsov gave Blake a scare by breaking
Blake on Blake's first two service games.
In the 2007 US Open he played doubles with Jesse
Levine. They won their first round match over
Dominik Hrbaty of Slovakia and Harel Levy of Israel,
6-1, 6-4, and their second round match, upsetting
7th-seeded Frenchmen Arnaud Clement and Michael
Llodra 7-6 (5), 6-4, before losing in the third
round to 9th-seeded Czechs Lukas Dlouhy and Pavel
Vizner, 6-4, 7-5.
The USTA asked Kuznetov and two other young American
men to play off in late December for the wild-card
berth in the Australian Open that the organization
received in a reciprocal agreement with Tennis
Australia. The other players selected based on age
(22 and under) and ranking (top 200) to compete in
Boca Raton, Florida, were Levine and Wayne Odesnik.
They played in a round-robin format. Levine won the
wild card.
