Guillermo Cañas

 

Guillermo Cañas

Nickname(s)	Willy, Giant Killer
Country	Argentina
Residence	Buenos Aires, Argentina
Date of birth	November 25 1977 (1977--) (age 29)
Place of birth	Buenos Aires, Argentina
Height	185 cm (6 ft 1 in)
Weight	86 kg (190 lbs)
Turned Pro	1995
Plays	Right
Career Prize Money	$4,276,595
Singles
Career record:	208 - 144
Career titles:	7
Highest ranking:	No. 8 (June 6, 2005)
Grand Slam results
Australian Open	4th (2004, 2005)
French Open	QF (2002, 2005, 2007)
Wimbledon	4th (2001)
U.S. Open	3rd (2004)
Doubles
Career record:	51 - 60
Career titles:	2
Highest ranking:	No. 47 (July 15, 2002)
Infobox last updated on: March 21, 2007.

Guillermo Ignacio 'Willy' Cañas (born November 25, 1977) is an Argentine professional tennis player. He was born in Argentina's capital, Buenos Aires, and named after Argentine tennis star Guillermo Vilas. His highest singles ranking was 8th (June 2005).

Canas plays a defensive counter-punching game from the baseline, and utilises his retrieving skills in order to frustrate opponents. He uses a two-handed backhand and his favourite surface is clay, but he is adept on hardcourt and grass too.

Guillermo Cañas started playing at age 7, and had an excellent start reaching quarterfinals of Junior Wimbledon in 1995, the same year he turned pro.

In 2001, after a right wrist injury the previous year, he climbed from 227th place in the ATP rankings to the 15th, and was named ATP Comeback Player of Year.

In the 2002 ATP Masters Series of Canada, Cañas won his first ATP Masters Series title in Toronto, defeating Andy Roddick in the final. In the tournament, he defeated many famous players (all are career Top 10 players, and all but Haas and Srichaphan reached World No. 1) for title :

• R64 - Roger Federer (SUI) by 7-6(10),7-5
• R32 - Paradorn Srichaphan (THA) by 6-2,6-1
• R16 - Yevgeny Kafelnikov (RUS) by 6-2,6-2
• Q - Marat Safin (RUS) by 7-5,6-3
• S - Tommy Haas (GER) by 6-4,3-6,7-6(5)
• F - Andy Roddick (USA) by 6-4,7-5

After a year of suspension for doping, Cañas returned to the circuit on September 2006 at the challenger of Belém, Brazil.

Cañas holds a record of 5 victories and 2 defeats (3:1 in singles) in Davis Cup matches.

Doping

In June 2002 rumors spread that he was being investigated by the ATP for a doping offense. The case was handled in secrecy. On August 8, 2005, Guillermo was suspended for two years and was forced to forfeit US$276,070 in prizes by the ATP for the use of a diuretic called hydrochlorothiazide, a substance with no benefits in itself other than as treatment for hypertension, but used to cover other forbidden substances. No traces of any other forbidden substance were found in Cañas' sample, and the player asserts the diuretic was present in some medicine prescribed by ATP doctors Mercader and Chinchila for a sore throat he contracted during the Acapulco tournament in Mexico.

Cañas vowed to fight the ban, claiming he was innocent of the charges against him. His perseverance paid off on May 23, 2006, when he was acquitted of deliberate performance enhancement through illegal substances, since the substances were in a prescription medicine. He was, however, considered careless in not checking the medicine before ingesting it. He was allowed to return to full professional activity from September 11, 2006, and the money prizes and points acquired before the suspension are to be restored, though points expire after a full year. [2]

Return

Since returning to the tour, Cañas has won five challenger titles and one ATP title (2007 Brazil Open), and is currently ranked No. 13 (as of september 9, 2007). Because he reached the Miami Masters final, he rose to #29 in the world. He won his first ATP-level match on February 15th, beating Marcos Daniel 6-1 6-4.

On March 11, 2007 Cañas defeated ATP ranked #1 Roger Federer 7-5 6-2 at Indian Wells, ending Federer's streak of 41 consecutive victories, 5 short of Vilas' record.^[1]. He defeated Federer again (7-6 2-6 7-6) 16 days later at the Miami Masters to validate his victory at Indian Wells, causing ESPN to dub him the "Giant Killer". This double victory is a feat indeed as he is the only person (besides Rafael Nadal) to have defeated Federer in consecutive tournaments since 2003. Cañas was quoted by media outlets when questioned about what is the secret behind beating Federer as - "I don't know what I do, I just know I played very good tennis."^[2] His record against Federer is (as of March 28, 2007) 3 victories and only 1 defeat, therefore being one of very few players to have an advantage over Federer head-to-head.

In Miami, he became the first qualifier to make it to a semifinal. In the semifinal, he beat Ivan Ljubicic, the seventh seed, 7-5, 6-2 to make it to the final with rising talent Novak Đoković. However, he was comfortably beaten by the Serbian in straight sets. Canas defeated Tim Henman, Juan Carlos Ferrero, Richard Gasquet, Roger Federer, Tommy Robredo, and Ivan Ljubicic, in respective order, before losing to Đoković.

In spite of that loss, Cañas jumped 121 positions to reach the 22nd place in the ATP ranking as of April 30, 2007, the highest jump so far in the year^[3].

Masters Series singles finals

Wins (1)

Year	Tournament	Opponent in Final	Score in Final
2002	Toronto	Andy Roddick	6-4, 7-5

Runner-up (1)

Year	Tournament	Opponent in Final	Score in Final
2007	Miami	Novak Đoković	6-3, 6-2, 6-4

Titles (20)

Singles titles (18)

Legend (Singles)

Grand Slam (0)

Tennis Masters Cup (0)

ATP Masters Series (1)

ATP Tour (6)

Challengers (11)

No.	Date	Tournament	Surface	Opponent in the final	Score
1.	December 2, 1996	Santiago	Clay	Franco Squillari	7-6 6-1
2.	August 25, 1997	Santa Cruz	Clay	Marcio Carlsson	6-2 4-6 6-2
3.	September 29, 1997	Santiago	Clay	Dennis Van Scheppingen	4-6 7-5 6-3
4.	April 20, 1998	Espinho	Clay	Mariano Puerta	6-1 2-6 6-2
5.	September 14, 1998	Florianopolis	Clay	Marcio Carlsson	6-2 7-5
6.	April 9, 2001	Casablanca	Clay	Tommy Robredo	7-5 6-2
7.	December 31, 2001	Chennai	Hard	Paradorn Srichaphan	6-4 7-6
8.	July 29, 2002	Toronto	Hard	Andy Roddick	6-4 7-5
9.	December 29, 2003	Noumea	Hard	Todd Reid	6-4 6-3
10.	July 12, 2004	Stuttgart	Clay	Gaston Gaudio	5-7 6-2 6-0 1-6 6-3
11.	July 19, 2004	Umag	Clay	Filippo Volandri	7-5 6-3
12.	September 27, 2004	Shanghai	Hard	Lars Burgsmuller	6-1 6-0
13.	September 11, 2006	Belem	Clay	Carlos Berlocq	4-6 6-2 7-6
14.	October 23, 2006	Montevideo	Clay	Nicolas Lapentti	2-6 6-3 7-6
15.	November 6, 2006	Buenos Aires	Clay	Martin Vassallo Arguello	6-3 6-4
16.	November 13, 2006	Asuncion	Clay	Flavio Saretta	6-4 6-1
17.	January 1, 2007	Sao Paulo	Clay	Diego Hartfield	6-3 6-4
18.	February 12, 2007	Costa Do Sauipe	Clay	Juan Carlos Ferrero	7-6 6-2

Doubles wins (2)

No.	Date	Tournament	Surface	Partner	Opponents in the final	Score
1.	23 August, 1999	Boston, U.S.	Hard	Martín García	Marius Barnard T.J. Middleton	5-7, 7-6(2), 6-4
2.	19 July, 2001	Stuttgart, Germany	Hard	Rainer Schüttler	Michael Hill Jeff Tarango	4-6, 7-6(1), 6-4

Singles finalist (9)

No.	Date	Tournament	Surface	Opponent in the final	Score
1.	26 April, 1999	Orlando, U.S.	Clay	Magnus Norman	6-0, 6-3
2.	25 June, 2001	s’Hertogenbosch, Netherlands	Grass	Lleyton Hewitt	6-3, 6-4
3.	23 July, 2001	Stuttgart Outdoor, Germany	Clay	Gustavo Kuerten	6-3, 6-2, 6-4
4.	15 October, 2001	Vienna, Austria	Hard (i)	Tommy Haas	6-2, 7-6, 6-4
5.	15 April, 2002	Casablanca, Morocco	Clay	Younes El Aynaoui	3-6, 6-3, 6-2
6.	22 July, 2002	Stuttgart, Germany	Clay	Mikhail Youzhny	6-3, 3-6, 3-6, 6-4, 6-4
7.	18 October, 2004	Vienna, Austria	Hard (i)	Feliciano Lopez	6-4, 1-6, 7-5, 3-6, 7-5
8.	2 April, 2007	Miami, U.S.	Hard	Novak Đoković	6-3, 6-2, 6-4
9.	30 April, 2007	Barcelona, Spain	Clay	Rafael Nadal	6-3, 6-4

Singles performance timeline

To prevent confusion and double counting, information in this table is updated only once a tournament or the player's participation in the tournament has concluded. This table is current through the 2007 US Open in New York, U.S., which concluded on September 10, 2007.

Tournament	1998	1999	2000	2001	2002	2003	2004	2005	2006	2007	Career SR	Career win-loss
Australian Open	A	1R	1R	2R	3R	2R	4R	4R	A	A	0 / 7	10-7
French Open	A	2R	1R	4R	QF	A	1R	QF	A	QF	0 / 7	16-7
Wimbledon	2R	2R	1R	4R	2R	A	1R	A	A	3R	0 / 7	8-7
U.S. Open	2R	2R	A	2R	A	A	3R	A	A	2R	0 / 5	6-5
Grand Slam SR	0 / 2	0 / 4	0 / 3	0 / 4	0 / 3	0 / 1	0 / 4	0 / 2	0 / 0	0 / 3	0 / 26	N/A
Grand Slam Win-Loss1	2-2	3-4	0-3	8-4	7-3	1-1	5-4	7-2	0-0	7-3	N/A	40-26
Indian Wells Masters	A	A	A	A	1R	A	2R	SF	A	3R	0 / 4	7-4
Miami Masters	2R	A	2R	A	3R	A	4R	2R	A	F	0 / 6	6-5
Monte Carlo Masters	A	A	A	A	2R	A	1R	2R	A	A	0 / 3	2-3
Rome Masters	A	A	A	A	1R	A	2R	3R	A	2R	0 / 4	4-4
Hamburg Masters	A	A	A	A	3R	A	1R	2R	A	1R	0 / 4	3-4
Canada Masters	2R	A	A	A	W	A	A	A	A	1R	1 / 3	7-2
Cincinnati Masters	A	A	A	3R	1R	A	A	A	A	1R	0 / 3	2-3
Madrid Masters (Stuttgart)	A	A	A	3R	2R	A	2R	A	A	3R	0 / 4	4-4
Paris Masters	A	A	A	2R	3R	A	SF	A	A		0 / 3	4-3
Total Titles	0	0	0	2	1	0	3	0	0	1	N/A	7
Overall Win-Loss	6-14	15-24	5-12	44-21	45-23	5-4	40-22	23-11	0-0	33-16	N/A	220-154
Year End Ranking	95	71	231	15	15	272	12	102	142		N/A	N/A

A = did not participate in the tournament.

SR = the ratio of the number of singles tournaments won to the number of those tournaments played.

References

External links

• ATP Tour profile for Guillermo Cañas
• Canas Recent Match Results
• Canas World Ranking History
• Unofficial Site
• ESPN profile (Spanish)

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