Ernests Gulbis (born August 30, 1988) is a tennis
player from Latvia. He is currently ranked 61st in
the world for singles, and 211th for doubles. Gulbis
is coached by Nikola Pilić, the former Yugoslavian
tennis player and Croatian Davis Cup captain, and
has been training at the Niki Pilic Tennis Academy
in Germany since he was 12.
Gulbis first started playing tennis with his
grandmother and considers basketball, soccer and
hockey as his favourite sports. His father, Ainārs,
is an investment businessman and his mother, Milena,
is a theatre actress. The second of five children,
Gulbis has three sisters (Elīna, Laura and Monika)
and one younger brother named Kristops. Gulbis comes
from a sporting family and his grandfather, Alvils,
was one of the starting five players on ASK Rīga,
the Soviet Union basketball team that won the
European Championships. His other grandfather, Uldis
Pūcītis, was a popular actor and film director.
Gulbis speaks three languages: Latvian, Russian and
English.
The highlights of his career up to 2006 are:
reaching the final of the Oberstaufen Challenger in
July 2006, where he lost to Michal Tabara; reaching
the final of the Tampere Challenger, also in July
2006, where he lost to Florian Mayer; reaching the
semi-finals of ATP St. Petersburg Open as a wildcard
in October, where he lost to Mario Ančić; and
winning the Eckental Challenger in November, where
he defeated Philipp Petzschner.
