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Steven Downs

New Zealand tennis player (born 1975)

Steven Downs (born 8 September 1975) is a former professional tennis player from New Zealand.

01Biography

Downs was a leading international junior, who was the world number one doubles player in 1993 and designated ITF World Champion. He reached a final at all four Grand Slam tournaments in 1993. With partner James Greenhalgh, he won two boys' doubles titles, the French Open and Wimbledon Championships. Downs, who played cricket for Auckland up to the Under 14s, made the singles final at the Australian Open and was runner-up to Marcelo Ríos at the US Open, for a year-end number five ranking.

Following his junior success in 1993, Downs turned professional and in 1994 made his first ATP Tour tournament in Auckland. Every year from 1994 to 1997 he featured in the main draw of the Auckland Open. In 1995 he made the round of 16, with a win over the world's 45th-ranked player, Fabrice Santoro.

During his career he participated in three ties for the New Zealand Davis Cup team. In 1995 he made his debut in a tie against Chinese Taipei in Wellington and won both of his singles matches, in a 5-0 whitewash. He was called up again when New Zealand played a World Group qualifier that year in Hamilton, against Switzerland. His first singles match was the opening rubber of the tie, a loss to Marc Rosset. When he and Alistair Hunt lost in the doubles, the tie was lost, although he did win a reverse singles rubber over Jakob Hlasek. In 1996, he played two more singles matches, in a tie against South Korea in Seoul, for losses to Lee Hyung-taik and Yoon Yong-il, but New Zealand still prevailed.

His last ATP Tour appearance in singles came at the 1996 Infiniti Open in Los Angeles, where he lost in the first round to Stefan Edberg. He was runner-up at a Perth Challenger event in 1996. At his peak, Downs was the second-ranked player in New Zealand, behind Brett Steven. A combination of factors, including an elbow injury, brought about an early retirement from professional tennis after the 1997 season.

02Junior Grand Slam finals

Singles: 2 (2 runners-up)

Result Year Tournament Surface Opponent Score
Loss1993Australian OpenHard James Baily3-6, 2-6
Loss1993US OpenHard Marcelo Ríos6-7, 3-6

Doubles: 2 (2 titles)

Result Year Tournament Surface Partner Opponents Score
Win1993French OpenClay James Greenhalgh Neville Godwin
Gareth Williams
6-1, 6-1
Win1993WimbledonGrass James Greenhalgh Neville Godwin
Gareth Williams
6-7, 7-6, 7-5

03ATP Challenger and ITF Futures finals

Singles: 1 (0-1)

Legend
ATP Challenger (0-1)
ITF Futures (0-0)
Finals by surface
Hard (0-1)
Clay (0-0)
Grass (0-0)
Carpet (0-0)
Result W-L Date Tournament Tier Surface Opponent Score
Loss 0-1 Dec 1996 Perth, Australia Challenger Hard Richard Fromberg 0-6, 3-6

Doubles: 1 (0-1)

Legend
ATP Challenger (0-1)
ITF Futures (0-0)
Finals by surface
Hard (0-1)
Clay (0-0)
Grass (0-0)
Carpet (0-0)
Result W-L Date Tournament Tier Surface Partner Opponents Score
Loss 0-1 Aug 1995 Bronx, United States Challenger Hard James Greenhalgh James Holmes
Ross Matheson
3-6, 7-5, 3-6
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Sources and credits

This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article Steven Downs, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.

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