The challenger tour hits Wrocław in Poland this week, so let’s take this opportunity to profile one of Poland’s veteran tennis players, Michal Przysiezny.
Michal Przysiezny is a one handed backhander from Głogów, Poland and now ironically lives in Wrocław where this week’s challenger is taking place. He first turned pro in 2001 and is now 33 years old. He has played over 100 matches on the ATP World Tour and has reached a career high of number 57 in the world. Most of his career he has competed on the challenger circuit, however on the latter stages of his career he started to make the jump from the challengers to the main tour.
He has also represented his country in the Davis Cup on a number of occasions, the Pole has won 12 singles rubbers and lost 15. His most decorated achievement came when he was the hero in 2015 as he won the decisive rubber to take Poland into their first World Group appearance, when they scored a 3-2 victory over Slovakia.
Przysiezny has often been described as the ‘Polish Roger Federer’, which is no surprise given his playing style. He has a sweet one handed backhand that he can dictate anywhere on the court and a quite powerful serve. His weakness has often been the timing of when to use these shots as he can be quite inconsistent which can lead to unforced errors. Another thing that has lead many of his fans to become frustrated is the amount of injuries that he has had, which have held him back. Often when Przysiezny was building momentum he would have an injury, hence the reason he is so low in the current world rankings.
Currently he is world number 402 and spent the latter stages sideline with yet another injury. At the start of 2016 Przysiezny said that he would have liked to have reached the top 100 at the end of the year, which didn’t quite happen. The 33 year old wasn’t quite realistic with his aspirations and needs to set achievable goals if he is to reach the dizzy heights of 2014.
He now enters his hometown looking for some valuable ranking points to kickstart his season, he started well on Tuesday with a 4-6 6-3 7-6(5) win over Andrey Golubev. If Przysiezny can stay physically fit and set realistic goals then the top 200 could be well within Michal’s grasp within the end of the year. All his fans hope and prey that he can reach the level of 2014, anything is possible as the ATP World Tour is proving that age is just a number.
The Wrocław Open continues this week, with the main attraction being Jerzy Janowicz.
