David Ferrer Ern (born April 2, 1982 in Jávea/Xŕbia,
Spain) is a right-handed Spanish professional tennis
player who lives in Valencia. He turned professional
in 2000.
Ferrer is especially known for his fighting spirit
and unwillingness to concede defeat. He is known as
a particularly dangerous clay court player, though
he has had several respectable results on hard
courts as well, especially his back-to-back
semifinal appearances at the NASDAQ-100 Open in
2005-2006 and his semifinal appearance at the 2007
U.S. Open. Interestingly, his first two titles came
at the expense of the same player in the final, José
Acasuso. The other three titles came in 2007 against
Tommy Robredo and Nicolás Almagro of Spain, and
Richard Gasquet of France. He broke into the top 10
in the ATP Tour singles rankings for the first time
in 2006. His highest and current ranking to date is
World Number 4, which he reached on 25 February
2008.
He wears Lotto Sport Italia shoes and clothes and
uses a Prince racquet. He is 5'9" tall and nicknamed
Ferru (normatively should be written ferro, but the
word is pronounced with a final "u" sound), meaning
iron in Valencian/Catalan. In fact ferrer means
literally smith (or blacksmith) in this romance
language.
Ferrer moved to Gandia at age 13, followed two years
later by a move to Barcelona to attend the Catalan
Tennis Federation. He spent nine months at Equelite,
Juan Carlos Ferrero’s Academy in Villena before
moving back to Jávea while practicing in Denia. He
turned professional in 2000, finishing as world
number 419, winning in Poland F1 and Spain F3
finishing runner-up in Spain F1. 2001 wasn't a
particularly good year for him. He captured his
first career Challenger title in Sopot and reached
the SF at Manerbio the following week. He also
reached the semifinals in Spain F15 and Spain F16.
