Ronald Agénor
Ronald Jean -Martin Agénor ( born November 13, 1964 in Rabat, Morocco ) is a former tennis player who played for Haiti and later took the U.S. citizenship.
Life
Agénor is the youngest of six children. His father was a diplomat for over 20 years in the United States before he became minister in Haiti. In 1974, at the age of 10, Agénor started playing tennis in Zaire. Four years later he moved to Bordeaux in order to concentrate fully on tennis there and develop his game. At the age of 17, he was number 24 in France, and a year later after winning two junior tournaments number 8 of the junior world rankings.
In 1983 he became a professional tennis player, first played on satellite tournaments where he won his first world ranking points. In 1985, he won the Challenger tournament in Marrakech for the first time and reached the top 50 of world tennis rankings. The following year he stood at the side of Mansour Bahrami the first time in a double finals. In 1987, he reached in the tournaments of ATP Basel ATP Gstaad ATP Bordeaux and the final, but none could decide for themselves. The final in Basel against Frenchman Yannick Noah was the first finalist in the ATP history in which two black tennis players met each other. In 1989 he won in Athens his first ATP tournament by winning the final against the then number 6 in the world rankings, Kent Carlsson. The following year he won the ATP tournament in Berlin and Genoa.
After the death of his father in 1992 Agénor interrupted his career. After he fell back to the World No. 161, he returned again in 1994 in the top 30 back. In 1996 and 1997 he took another break and went to only three tournaments. In 1998, he launched another comeback, and was able to play from world ranking 790 back into the Top 100. He was so after Jimmy Connors in 1992, the first over 35 years in the top 100 in the world. During his playing days, he began his career in 2002 as a tennis coach and opened the " Ronald Agénor Tennis Academy ", the same year he finished his playing career due to injury. His best finish in the tennis world rankings he had in 1989 with position 22 in the singles and in 1986 with position 111 in doubles. His best result at a Grand Slam tournament was reaching the quarter- finals of the French Open in 1989, where he lost to the eventual tournament winner Michael Chang. In the doubles competition were his best results of second-round appearances at the French Open and the U.S. Open.
Agénor played between 1990 and 2008 30 single and 18 double roles for the Haitian Davis Cup team. Prior to his recent appointment to the team in 2008 for the double against the Virgin Islands, he had paused for six years.
2002 Agénor married the actress Tonya Williams, with whom he has two children. He released two CDs with rock music.