Who was the most unlikely masters series champ?

M

Moose Malloy

G.O.A.T.
Here are some shocking results since the series started in 1990.

1993 Montreal-Mikael Pernfors
R64 Kaplan, Mark (RSA) 6-2 7-5
R32 Stoltenberg, Jason (AUS) 6-4 6-4
R16 Courier, Jim (USA) 6-3 6-2
Q Volkov, Alexander (RUS) 6-2 6-1
S Korda, Petr (CZE) 7-6(4) 7-5
W Martin, Todd (USA) 2-6 6-2 7-5

Pernfors was ranked 95 & just turned 30. A truly shocking result from an 80s player with no big weapons over some very big hitters. I remember thinking that this may be a turning point in Courier's time at the top, who was so consistent at the time. Tough loss for Martin, his best chance at winning a masters series. Pernfors won only 3 career titles, this being his first since 1988.

1990 Hamburg-Juan Aguilera
R64 Ivanisevic, Goran (CRO) 6-4 6-1
R32 Chang, Michael (USA) 6-3 6-2
R16 Courier, Jim (USA) 1-6 6-4 6-4
Q Gustafsson, Magnus (SWE) 6-1 6-4
S Forget, Guy (FRA) 7-5 7-6
W Becker, Boris (GER) 6-1 6-0 7-6
Didn't see this, but Aguilera had only 5 career titles(& never did well at the French despite his claycourt resume) & was ranked 26 at the time. Tough loss for Becker in Germany, he never won a clay title.

1997 Montreal-Chris Woodruff
R64 Robichaud, Jocelyn (CAN) 7-6(7) 6-3
R32 Siemerink, Jan (NED) 6-7(4) 7-5 7-6(2)
R16 Ivanisevic, Goran (CRO) 7-6(6) 6-2
Q Philippoussis, Mark (AUS) 6-4 6-4
S Kafelnikov, Yevgeny (RUS) 5-7 7-5 6-3
W Kuerten, Gustavo (BRA) 7-5 4-6 6-3
Woodruff was ranked 57 at the time & Kuerten had just won the French.

1996 Hamburg-Roberto Carretero
R64 Arrese, Jordi (ESP) 6-3 5-7 7-6(2)
R32 Washington, MaliVai (USA) 6-1 6-0
R16 Boetsch, Arnaud (FRA) 6-4 6-1
Q Schaller, Gilbert (AUT) 4-6 6-4 6-4
S Kafelnikov, Yevgeny (RUS) 7-5 6-2
W Corretja, Alex (ESP) 2-6 6-4 6-4 6-4
Carretero was a qualifier ranked 143. He did virtually nothing after this win.

2001 Hamburg-Albert Portas
R64 Voltchkov, Vladimir (BLR) 6-1 6-3
R32 Norman, Magnus (SWE) 7-6(5) 7-6(7)
R16 Grosjean, Sebastien (FRA) 6-3 4-6 6-2
Q Martin, Alberto (ESP) 6-3 6-2
S Hewitt, Lleyton (AUS) 3-6 7-5 6-2
W Ferrero, Juan Carlos (ESP) 4-6 6-2 0-6 7-6(5) 7-5
Portas was ranked 42 at the time, this was his only title.

1999 Montreal-Thomas Johansson
R64 Larose, Simon (CAN) 6-2 6-3
R32 Mirnyi, Max (BLR) 7-5 7-6(6)
R16 Lareau, Sebastien (CAN) 7-6(4) 4-6 6-4
Q Courier, Jim (USA) 6-4 6-4
S Kiefer, Nicolas (GER) 4-6 6-1 6-3
W Kafelnikov, Yevgeny (RUS) 1-6 6-3 6-3
Yes, he's a major title winner. But he was only ranked 22 at the time & was a big underdog vs Kafelnikov(who surprisingly never won a masters series)

1991 Hamburg-Karel Novacek
R64 Steeb, Carl-Uwe (GER) 6-4 7-6(4)
R32 Camporese, Omar (ITA) 6-3 6-2
R16 Sampras, Pete (USA) 6-4 6-2
Q Koevermans, Mark (NED) 4-6 6-4 6-2
S Stich, Michael (GER) 6-3 2-6 7-6(5)
W Gustafsson, Magnus (SWE) 6-3 6-3 5-7 0-6 6-1
Novacek did end up qualifying for the 1991 Masters, but was only ranked 26 at the time of this event.

1991 Montreal-Andrei Chesnokov
R64 Goldie, Dan (USA) 6-1 6-2
R32 Lareau, Sebastien (CAN) 4-6 6-1 6-3
R16 Pescosolido, Stefano (ITA) 6-4 6-4
Q Matsuoka, Shuzo (JPN) 6-2 3-6 7-5
S Lendl, Ivan (USA) 7-6(4) 7-5
W Korda, Petr (CZE) 3-6 6-4 6-3
Chesnokov was ranked 32 at the time. This was his last title. Korda was ranked 40 at the time, but beat Courier & Agassi to get to the final.
 
I would have to with 1996 Hamburg-Roberto Carretero, won Hamburg, and was never heard of again. Rumor had it that he started to think he was the man and stopped training hard, and thus was off the map as quickly as he got on.
 
i would say that micheal Per.. pernfr.. i can't even spell it right never heard of him before and i am a regular tennis watcher since i was 12 or 13 and i am 27 now
 
Nice thread Moose. I followed tennis very enthusiastically in the mid 90's but wasn't aware of some of these results. I didn't have internet access, and the newspapers in Pakistan didn't cover tennis all that well.
How come all these results are only from Hamburg and Montreal? Did you only look up these 2 events or are these all the shocking results you could find in all the Masters?
 
It is interesting that all of these happened in Montreal or Hamburg. Anybody have a theory on why that is? Is it because of where they fall in the season that you get a lot of withdraws of top players?
 
Sagittar said:
i would say that micheal Per.. pernfr.. i can't even spell it right never heard of him before and i am a regular tennis watcher since i was 12 or 13 and i am 27 now
Click to expand...

I'd take Pernfors ('86 RG r-up to Lendl) and T. Johansson down right off the bat. They did show they were accomplished players at some point in their careers.

Next, Portas.

Not much between the rest. Nice list.
 
How come all these results are only from Hamburg and Montreal? Did you only look up these 2 events or are these all the shocking results you could find in all the Masters?
Click to expand...

It is interesting that all of these happened in Montreal or Hamburg. Anybody have a theory on why that is? Is it because of where they fall in the season that you get a lot of withdraws of top players?
Click to expand...

I did look up up the other master series & these 2 events were the ones with the most unlikely champs. You can add 2001 Montreal Champ Pavel & 2002 Toronto Champ Canas to the list.

My theory as far as Montreal/Canadian Open is this-it came soon after Wimbledon in the 90s(dates changed in recent years) & many top players(like Sampras) skipped it over the years. Also the top players could just be rusty after their post Wimbledon break.

Hamburg, I'm not entirely sure why. The dates have changed over the years, but Monte Carlo was always the first of the clay masters series & it didn't have any unusual winners.
The players say that conditions are very slow & cold in Hamburg, that may be a factor(Hamburg conditions are probably least similar to the French, so some of the top claycourters prefer to take a break that week, so they can peak at the French)
And I see that one of the great claycourters of the 90s, Muster, rarely played Hamburg(he won Monte Carlo & Rome in 1996 but skipped Hamburg, so Carretero didn't beat the king of clay that year) And Agassi played it once or twice in his career, I think.
Also, clay has far by the most tournaments on tour, so it is a surface that upsets are most likely to occur on anyway.
 
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Also, clay has far by the most tournaments on tour,[/QUOTE]

I'm not sure about that. I'm pretty sure that there are slightly more hard-court tourneys on tour than clay ones and there are way more hard-court masters events, or ones that are on faster surfaces. 6 to 3 is the ratio. I think that the reason you get strange winners alot on clay is actually because there are fewer clay events. Guys like Gomez, Gaudio, Costa are great clay courters but they have trouble getting their ranking up because they don't have many events on their favorite surface. So they will catch on fire and come out of no where to win big titles. i.e: their FO wins.
 
Moose Malloy said:
I did look up up the other master series & these 2 events were the ones with the most unlikely champs. You can add 2001 Montreal Champ Pavel & 2002 Toronto Champ Canas to the list.

My theory as far as Montreal/Canadian Open is this-it came soon after Wimbledon in the 90s(dates changed in recent years) & many top players(like Sampras) skipped it over the years. Also the top players could just be rusty after their post Wimbledon break.

Hamburg, I'm not entirely sure why. The dates have changed over the years, but Monte Carlo was always the first of the clay masters series & it didn't have any unusual winners.
The players say that conditions are very slow & cold in Hamburg, that may be a factor(Hamburg conditions are probably least similar to the French, so some of the top claycourters prefer to take a break that week, so they can peak at the French)
And I see that one of the great claycourters of the 90s, Muster, rarely played Hamburg(he won Monte Carlo & Rome in 1996 but skipped Hamburg, so Carretero didn't beat the king of clay that year) And Agassi played it once or twice in his career, I think.
Also, clay has far by the most tournaments on tour, so it is a surface that upsets are most likely to occur on anyway.
Click to expand...
And Montreal plays a bit slower for a summer hard court, right? (Even slower than Toronto, which seems pretty close to the US Open to me.) Seems like a number of the usual hard court suspects get taken out there every year.
 
2001 Hamburg jumps out. True Ferrero won Rome the week before, but he obviously wasn't too tired to reach the final. Just how did Portas win that match? Anyway If Ferrero had won that match would that have made him the only player in history to have won those two tournaments back to back?
 
Has to be Carretero

Since I started following the tour in late 1995 Carretero's win in Hamburg in 1996 was the strangest of all Masters Series events. I honestly had never heard of him until that week. It's certainly more than just a coincidence that many or all of the weirdest Masters Series title winners have triumphed in Hamburg and Canada. The reasons discussed earlier about Hamburg's weather conditions and timing on the calendar are correct. Monte Carlo and Rome have always tended to have drawn most or all of the top guys, whereas Hamburg seems to suffer from several withdrawals a year. The weather is certainly more favorable in Monte Carlo and Rome. Sampras, Agassi and even Muster rarely played in Hamburg over the years, although the first two wouldn't likely have been title threats anyway.

The Canadian event, either in Montreal or Toronto, and the Cincinnati Masters have been scheduled back to back for years. For whatever reason, though they both have always had great fields, Cincy has tended to get everyone while a few guys might not play in Canada. I remember in the mid 90s it was customary for many of the top European players at that time to wait until the week of Cincinnati to come over to North America for the hardcourt season. They would all play in Cincy and then the week after in either Indianapolis or Washington. The next week contained events in Boston and Long Island before the U.S. Open. Now there is only one week in between Cincinnati and the Open, which I think has helped get all of the top guys in Canada.
 
Good list but I dont agree with Johansson winning the 99 Canadian Open as one of belonging in the group of most unlikely Masters series champs. First of all at the time Johansson was an up and coming power player who looked like a potential top tenner, and in retrospect he did go on to win that surprise Grand slam after some injury trouble that arguably cost him the chance of fulfilling all his potential. Second if you ignore their 1996 meeting(when Johansson was not even on the radar screen yet)the head to head with Kafelnikov and Johansson was 3-3, or even if you count that meeting it was only 4-3 Kafelnikov, but Johansson had also won the last 2 meetings between the two including the 98 U.S Open 4th round. Again now speaking in retrospect but Johansson went on to have an 8-match winning streak with Kafelnikov, with 5 more wins to come after this one. Kafelnikov was a top player but he was definitely less imposing to play then any of Sampras, Agassi, Becker, Edberg, Rafter, Courier(in his prime), Chang(in his prime). Whenever he played a 2nd tier player you always had a feeling that guy had a great shot to beat him.

Johansson did not really beat anybody that was much of a surprise for him to beat at that point in time, Kafelnikov was the closest to that and even he wasnt so much.
 
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