Mark Kuvermans ( niderl. Mark Koevermans ; genus. February 3, 1968 , Rotterdam ) - Dutch professional tennis player and businessman. Winner of five ATP tour tournaments (one in singles), a member of the Dutch national team in the Davis Cup . Since 2009, occupies the post of commercial director of the football club " Feyenoord ".
| Mark Couvermans | |
|---|---|
| Player gender | |
| Date of Birth | |
| Place of Birth | |
| Citizenship | |
| Place of residence | Rotterdam , the Netherlands |
| Growth | 185 cm |
| Weight | 79 kg |
| Carier start | 1987 |
| Career end | 1994 |
| Working hand | right |
| Prize money | 842 859 |
| Singles | |
| Matches | |
| Titles | one |
| Highest position | 37 ( May 27, 1991 ) |
| Grand Slam Tournaments | |
| Australia | 3rd round (1991) |
| France | 2nd round (1990) |
| Wimbledon | 4th round (1990) |
| USA | 2nd round (1989) |
| Double discharge | |
| Matches | |
| Titles | four |
| Highest position | 24 ( June 21, 1993 ) |
| Grand Slam Tournaments | |
| Australia | 3rd round (1991) |
| France | 1/2 finals (1990) |
| Wimbledon | 1/4 finals (1992) |
| USA | 2nd round (1991) |
Content
Sports career
Mark Kuvermans, who received the nickname “Kuf” ( nyderl. Koef ) [2] , began playing tennis at the age of seven and in 1987 became a professional. In 1988, having won two challenger tournaments in doubles and one challenger and satellite in single, strongly advanced in the ranking, especially in single (from 524th to 139th place). In the same year, he began playing for the Netherlands national team in the Davis Cup , taking part in the final match of the European zone against the USSR team .
Already in 1989, Couvermans, in a pair with Paul Harhoys, reached the final of the Netherlands Open in Hilversum, which is part of the main round of the Grand Prix ; however, they did not play the final because of the rain. A year later, Kuvermans lost in the final in Hilversum and in two more tournaments of the main doubles tour, including twice in a pair with Harheus, and they reached the semifinals in the Grand Slam of the French Open . In singles, Couvermans first entered the fourth round at the Wimbledon tournament , and then became the winner of the Athens Open Championship , which was part of the main round, defeating two opponents who were in the Top-50 ATP ranking . Both Cuvermans' result at Wimbledon and the main series tournament winnings were the first in Dutch tennis after a long break since the success of Tom Okker in the late 1970s [3] [4] . As a result, he finished the season among the 50 best tennis players in the world in both singles and doubles.
In the first half of 1991, Cuvermans showed a few more good results in singles, beating Pit Sampras ’ fifth world racket in Memphis, and Sergi Bruger’s eighth racket in the ATP highest category at the German Open Championship and reached 37th place. Toward the end of the season, he defeated Brugger again, now in Hilversum on the way to the semi-finals. His success in doubles was even more impressive - four finals of the ATP tournaments for the year, including the Monte Carlo highest category tournament , two titles (with Harhoeuss and Yakko Elting ), the French Open championship quarter-finals and 32nd place in the rankings at the end of the season. The following year, Couvermans was no longer able to maintain the previous level of success in singles, having rolled to the end of the first hundred in the ranking; His only victory over his Top-50 rival for the entire season was the Brugers win in the second round of the Barcelona Olympics . In the doubles, however, he continued to perform successfully, having played five finals for the year and won the title with Harheus at the Netherlands Open.
1993 was the last full game season in Coovermans career. In singles, his most significant event was the victory in the Davis Cup in Barcelona over Bruger. Kuvermans, who was not in the top 100 in the rankings, got into the national team only because of the illness of its leader Richard Krycek and lost his first game to Carlos Costa , and Bruger at that time was considered one of the leaders of world tennis on clay courts and soon after that the winner of the French Open [4] . The match Brugery and Coovermans was decisive in the match with the score 2-2, and the representative of Spain led him 2-0 in sets, but the Dutch tennis player managed to change the course of the game and snatch the victory both in it and throughout the match [5] . In the doubles, Cuvermans won the German Open in May - his third tournament together with Harhois and the most prestigious of his career. Three more times he lost in the finals (once with Harhoeus and two with American van Emburg ), by the end of June he rose to 24th place in the ranking and finished the season for the fourth time in a row among the top 50 doubles players in the world. In 1994, Coovermans ended his playing career in the middle of the season, at the age of 26, after a challenger in Scheveningen.
At the end of the speeches, Couvermans turned to administrative activities in the business world. In the international sportswear manufacturer O'Neill, he headed the marketing department for eight years, and then for three years he was director of sales in Central and Eastern Europe [6] . In early 2009, Cuvermans accepted an offer to take the post of commercial director of the Rotterdam football club Feyenoord , which has been a fan since childhood [2] . His work with the club was highly appreciated: in 2013 he received the Football Business Award as the best commercial manager in the Netherlands [6] .
Game Style
Couvermans is considered one of the best specialists in the game of ground play. His only title in singles was conquered on the clay courts of Athens, he won the unpaved Open Championship of Germany together with Harhoys, twice played in the finals in another tournament of the highest category in Monte Carlo and was in the semi-finals of the French Open. However, in the singles, the French Open was extremely unsuccessful for him - four defeats in the first round and only one match won in five years. Cuwermans himself explains this by the fact that the Roland Garros courts, where a thin layer of earth is poured over the concrete, are not classical unpaved ones, unlike Rome or Monte Carlo, but closer in speed to a rebound to hard courts [4] . Kuvermans’s success on fast surfaces was much more modest than on the ground — in particular, in his own Rotterdam on the ABN AMRO World Tennis Tournament carpet, every time in four years of participation he was already out of the fight in the first round [7] .
Position at the end of the year
| Discharge | 1987 | 1988 | 1989 | 1990 | 1991 | 1992 | 1993 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Single | 524 | 139 | 63 | 48 | 71 | 139 | 412 |
| Doubles | 580 | 228 | 109 | 44 | 32 | 44 | 50 |
Participation in the finals of the ATP career tournaments
| Legend |
|---|
| Grand slam |
| ATP World Championship |
| ATP Super Seven (3) |
| ATP Championship Series |
| ATP World (14) |
| Grand Prix (1) |
Singles (1-0)
| Result | No | date | Tournament | Coating | Rival in the final | Score in the final |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Victory | one. | October 1, 1990 | Athens, Greece | Priming | Franco Davin | 5-7, 6-4, 6-1 |
Doubles rank (4-12-1)
| Result | No | date | Tournament | Coating | Partner | Rivals in the final | Score in the final |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Draw | one. | July 24, 1989 | Netherlands Open, Hilversum | Priming | Paul Harhois | Thomas Carbonel Diego Perez Burin | canceled (weather) |
| Defeat | one. | March 5, 1990 | Casablanca, Morocco | Priming | Paul Harhois | Todd Woodbridge Simon Yule | 3-6, 1-6 |
| Defeat | 2 | July 23, 1990 | Netherlands Open | Priming | Paul Harhois | Sergio Casal Emilio Sanchez | 5-7, 5-7 |
| Defeat | 3 | October 22, 1990 | Sao Paulo , Brazil | Carpet (i) | Luis mattar | Shelby Cannon Alfonso Mora | 7-6, 3-6, 6-7 |
| Defeat | four. | December 31, 1990 | Adelaide, Australia | Hard | Paul Harhois | Stefan Kruger Wayne ferreira | 4-6, 6-4, 4-6 |
| Victory | one. | April 1, 1991 | Oeiras, Portugal | Priming | Paul Harhois | Tom Nayssen Cyril Suk | 6-3, 6-3 |
| Defeat | five. | April 22, 1991 | Monte Carlo, Monaco | Priming | Paul Harhois | Luke Jensen Laurie warder | 7-5, 6-7, 4-6 |
| Victory | 2 | September 30, 1991 | Athens, Greece | Priming | Yakko Elting | Menno osting Olli Rahnasto | 5-7, 7-6, 7-5 |
| Defeat | 6 | February 24, 1992 | Rotterdam , the Netherlands | Carpet (i) | Paul Harhois | Mark Kevin Hollner David Prisil | 2-6, 7-6, 6-7 |
| Defeat | 7 | June 15, 1992 | Genoa, Italy | Priming | Paul Harhois | Greg van Emburg Shelby Cannon | 1-6, 1-6 |
| Victory | 3 | July 20, 1992 | Netherlands Open | Priming | Paul Harhois | Marten Renström Michael Tilstrom | 6-7, 6-1, 6-4 |
| Defeat | eight. | October 15, 1992 | Athens | Priming | Marcelo Filippini | Thomas Carbonel Francisco Roig | 3-6, 4-6 |
| Defeat | 9. | October 12, 1992 | Tel Aviv, Israel | Hard | Tobias Svantesson | Mike bower Joan Cunha e Silva | 3-6, 4-6 |
| Defeat | ten. | April 19, 1993 | Monte Carlo (2) | Priming | Paul Harhois | Peter Korda Stefan Edberg | 6-3, 2-6, 6-7 |
| Victory | four. | May 3, 1993 | German Open, Hamburg | Priming | Paul Harhois | Patrick Galbright Grant connell | 6-4, 6-7, 7-6 |
| Defeat | eleven. | June 7, 1993 | Florence , Italy | Priming | Greg van Emburg | Thomas Carbonel Libor Pimek | 6-7, 6-2, 1-6 |
| Defeat | 12. | June 14, 1993 | Genoa (2) | Priming | Greg van Emburg | Sergio Casal Emilio Sanchez | 3-6, 6-7 |
Notes
- ↑ 1 2 3 4 ATP website
- ↑ 1 2 Robèrt Misset. Directeur met gravel aan zijn sokken (nid.) . de Volkskrant (September 12, 2009). The appeal date is June 10, 2015.
- ↑ Bert Regeer. Mark Koevermans logenstraft alle wetten grastennis (nid.) . NRC Handelsblad (30 juni 1990). The appeal date is June 11, 2015.
- ↑ 1 2 3 Fred Buddenberg. Mark Koevermans (nid.) . Trouw (26-05-03). The appeal date is June 11, 2015.
- ↑ Match of the World group of the Davis Cup Spain-Netherlands, 1993 on the website of the Davis Cup (eng.)
- ↑ 1 2 Mark Koevermans (nid.) . Jan Dirk Stouten. The appeal date is June 10, 2015.
- ↑ Koevermans: Nadal verdient elke cent (nid.) . AD.nl (14-2-09). The appeal date is June 11, 2015.
Links
- Profile on ATP website (eng.)
- Profile on the ITF website (English)
- Profile on the Davis Cup website (eng.)