Grant Stafford
Grant Stafford ( born May 27, 1971 in Johannesburg ) is a former South African tennis player.
Life
Stafford reached in 1989 on the side of Wayne Ferreira the quarter-finals of the junior tournament, the French Open; both won in the same year the title at the U.S. Open Junior Championships. The following year, he became a professional tennis player. In 1992, he won his first doubles title on the ATP Challenger Tour. In total he won during his career eleven Challenger doubles titles and three Challenger singles title. In 1993 he was in Durban for the first time in a singles final on the ATP World Tour, with his three final appearances he never was able to celebrate winning the title. He was more successful in doubles competition, where he achieved during his career five ATP doubles titles. Its highest listing in the tennis world ranking he reached in 1994 with position 53 in the singles and in 1998 with position 42 in doubles.
His best individual result at a Grand Slam tournament was reaching the second round at the Australian Open 1994., Where he won against Mark Philippoussis, Emilio Sánchez and Marc Rosset before he was Goran Ivanisevic defeated. At Wimbledon, he reached the third round in 1992 after victories over Thomas Muster and Patrick McEnroe, and then defeated Stefan Edberg. In the doubles competition, he reached the quarter finals of the Australian Open and the U.S. Open. His best result was the semifinals in mixed participation at the French Open in 1999. Alongside Esme De Villiers, he was inferior to the later title winners Piet Norval Katarina Srebotnik and.
Stafford played between 1994 and 1999 seven single and a double batch for the South African Davis Cup team. His only double game he won at the side of Ellis Ferreira against Andrei Andrei Cherkasov Olchowski and, in individual he could, however, achieve a single victory. Among other things, he defeated Tim Henman, Greg Rusedski, Tommy Haas and Thomas Enqvist.