Henri Leconte

Henri Leconte born 4 July 1963 is a French former professional tennis player He reached the mens singles final at the French Open in 1988 won the French Open mens doubles title in 1984 and helped France win the Davis Cup in 1991 During his career he won singles titles on all four major court surfaces hard clay grass and carpet Lecontes careerhigh singles ranking was world No 5 Leconte first came to the tennis worlds attention as an outstanding junior player who won the French Open junior title in 1981 He turned professional that year and won his first career doubles title at Bologna and his first toplevel singles title the following year 1982 in Stockholm Leconte played in the Davis Cup final for the first time in 1982 when France was defeated 41 by the United States Leconte teamed up with Yannick Noah to win the mens doubles title at the French Open in 1984 In 1985 Leconte and Noah reached a second Grand Slam doubles final at the US Open where they finished runnersup Leconte reached his careerhigh doubles ranking of world No 6 in 1985 In singles in 1985 Leconte reached the quarterfinals of the French Open and Wimbledon the latter run of which included a dazzling win over world no 2 Ivan Lendl in the fourth round 1986 saw Leconte reach two Grand Slam singles semifinals at the French Open and Wimbledon and attain his careerhigh singles ranking of world No 5 Leconte also played on the French team that won the World Team Cup that year In 1988 Leconte reached the mens singles final at the French Open beating Simon Youl Bruno Orešar Horacio de la Peña Boris Becker Andrei Chesnokov and Jonas Svensson In the final Leconte could not overcome twotime former champion Mats Wilander who defeated him in straight sets In 1991 Leconte was involved in the Davis Cup final for a second time France again faced the US and this time Leconte defeated Pete Sampras in straight sets in a critical singles rubber and also teamed with Guy Forget to win the doubles rubber as France upset the heavily favoured US team 31 In total Leconte played for Frances Davis Cup team for a total of 13 consecutive years compiling a 4125 record He compiled a doubles record of 175 and was undefeated with Guy Forget 11 wins winning his last 14 doubles matches from March 1985 to July 1993 Leconte won his final toplevel singles title in 1993 in Halle He also won his final doubles title that year at Indian Wells Leconte retired from the professional tour in 1996 having won a total of nine career singles titles and ten doubles titles Playing on the ATP Champions Tour for over35s he formed a doubles partnership with the Iranian player Mansour Bahrami He is now the manager of an event company HL Event based in Belgium and opened a tennis academy in Fès Morocco in 2006 Since 2010 Leconte has appeared on Australian television as a commentator on the Seven Networks coverage of the Australian Open There he obtained a cult following as a result of a zany exhibition doubles performance and his passionate and often parochial commentary especially for compatriot JoWilfried Tsonga whose winning shots he routinely described as unbelievable Source Article Henri Leconte from Wikipedia in English licensed under CCBYSA