Julian Knowle is an Austrian male professional
tennis player. Being a born left-hander Knowle is
one of now only few on the ATP Tour who plays his
forehand, backhand and even volleys two-handed. He
is currently Austria's most successful doubles
player in history by reaching no. 10 in the ATP
doubles ranking in September 2007.
Knowle was a successful player on the ATP Challenger
Series, winning the Challenger tournaments in Kyoto
(1999), Caracas (2001), Graz (2001) and Andrezieux
(2002) and reaching the finals in Yokohama (2000),
Bristol (2000), Besancon (2000) and Graz (2003). He
also won several Futures tournaments. Knowle's best
ATP singles ranking was no. 86 in July 2002. He
appeared last in the main draw of a singles
tournament in the Graz Challenger in 2005 where he
reached the quarter final.
Knowle reached his first of two Grand Slam finals at
Wimbledon in 2004 together with Nenad Zimonjić of
Serbia. Eventually the team was defeated in four
sets by Jonas Björkman and Todd Woodbridge. The only
Austrian to reach a final at Wimbledon before was
Georg von Metaxa in doubles in 1938 where he too
lost.
In 2005 Knowle teamed up with Czech Petr Pála for
several months without being able to continue his
successful run with Zimonjić. This changed when he
formed a team with fellow Austrian player and
left-hander Jürgen Melzer, joining him throughout
most of 2005 and 2006. Together they won two
tournaments in doubles and reached another five
finals.
Following Jürgen Melzer's hand injury in early 2007,
Knowle found a new partner in Simon Aspelin of
Sweden.
At the 2007 U.S. Open, seeded tenth with his partner
Simon Aspelin, Knowle achieved the greatest triumph
of his career by winning the U.S. Open, his first
Grand Slam. In the first two rounds, they won over
Kubot/Skoch 6-2 6-2 and got a walkover over
Calleri/Horna. They went on to upset the eighth
seeds Jonathan Erlich and Andy Ram (who would go on
to win the 2008 Australian Open mens doubles) in the
third round. In the quarterfinals, they shocked the
top seeds Mike Bryan and Bob Bryan 7-5 6-4, having
lost to them only weeks before. In the semifinals,
they held off unseeded Julien Benneteau and Nicolas
Mahut 7-6(2) 1-6 6-3, before winning the final 7-5
6-4 over the ninth seeds, Pavel Vizner and Lukas
Dlouhy. They had previously won three tournaments
together. This win put them into the No. 5 position
in the ATP Doubles Race, and also gave Knowle his
first top 10 ranking in doubles.
Julian Knowle is only the second Austrian tennis
player to win a Grand Slam tournament (the first in
doubles). The only other Austrian to win a Grand
Slam tournament before was Thomas Muster at the 1995
French Open.
Their excellent first year as a team enabled Knowle
and Aspelin to participate in the Tennis Masters Cup
in Shanghai, China for the first time. They
surprisingly made it all the way to the finals,
beating Pavel Vizner and Lukas Dlouhy, Arnaud
Clement and Michael Llodra and finally Martin Damm
and Leander Paes before eventually falling in
straight sets to Mark Knowles and Daniel Nestor 2-6,
3-6.
Their first Masters Cup participation put the duo
into the no. 3 spot of the ATP Doubles Race for the
first time.
