The 21st century
Czech Republic · born Jindřichův Hradec, 1977 · Wimbledon mixed doubles champion 2001 with Daniela Hantuchová
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2001
Wimbledon mixed doubles champion, unseeded
4-6, 6-3, 6-2
The 2001 final against Mike Bryan and Liezel Huber
16
ATP doubles titles
No. 14
Career-high doubles ranking, 2005
Born in Jindřichův Hradec on 1 January 1977, Friedl grew up from the age of three in Dušejov, a village near Jihlava. He leaned at first towards ice hockey, began tennis at six and chose it over other sports at nine, joining the club in Jihlava, where he was coached by Lubomír Gerla. He began touring regularly in 1998.
A doubles specialist who named clay as his favourite surface and the return as his best shot, he won 16 ATP titles, most of them with František Čermák and Tomáš Cibulec, and reached No. 14 in 2005, the year he played Davis Cup for the Czech Republic. In 2001, unseeded with Daniela Hantuchová, he won the Wimbledon mixed doubles; he later called it the best moment of his career.
He stepped back from the tour at the end of 2011, at 34, to play club matches in the Czech extraliga, and turned to coaching. He guided Filip Polášek to the 2021 Australian Open doubles title, coached Karolína Plíšková during the 2021 North American hard-court swing, when she reached the US Open quarter-finals, and was named her coach in July 2022.
| Wimbledon 2001 final | Unseeded, beat the unseeded Mike Bryan and Liezel Huber 4-6, 6-3, 6-2 in 85 minutes |
|---|---|
| A new pairing | He and Hantuchová had met only about three weeks earlier, in Paris, and agreed to try playing mixed together |
| Wimbledon | ||
|---|---|---|
| 2001 | Mixed doubles | with Daniela Hantuchová |
Leading grass titles only: the grass majors, tour-level grass events since 1968 and the leading grass championships before 1968. † single source; ‡ sources disagree. Roll of champions
The person behind the player.
1 January 1977
Friedl was born on New Year's Day 1977 in Jindřichův Hradec, by his own account the first child born there that year. He grew up in Dušejov, a sporty village, and played hockey before a second place in a tennis tournament led his family to the club in Jihlava.
Source: E15, 2011Paris, 2001
He met Daniela Hantuchová, then young and little known, about three weeks before Wimbledon in Paris, and they agreed to try the mixed together. They won it unseeded.
Source: E15, 2011On tour
He once counted his flights as a touring professional and reached about 600. He described Čermák and Cibulec as like brothers after all they had been through together.
Source: E15, 2011Family
His father, Jan, worked in maintenance at a school and his mother, Drahomíra, in a bakery. A keen football and hockey fan, he played each December in a hockey game between Czech and Slovak players.
Source: ATP Tour player biographyFree membership: player news, the grass court Atlas, the rankings and the grass season calendar.
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