Rainer Schuettler, From Top Tennis Pro to Entrepreneur

Rainer has lived the dream of any young boy/girl who grew up playing and loving the sport of tennis. From starting at the age of 10 to going Pro at 18/19, getting to a Grand Slam Final, cracking the top 5 ATP Tour ranking and retiring with an amazing career behind him at they age of 36 and then becoming an Entrepreneur by buying a license for an ATP event. Rainer has lived it and been there and is sharing his thoughts, emotions and learning from his amazing tennis journey.  Key Highlights Tennis professional by mistake – started playing at age 10 At 16-17 starting to take it serious, playing ITF Junior Tournaments around the world, getting on Junior World Ranking His coach, Dirk Hordorff was instrumental in taking pressure off him and setting him up for a successful transition from Junior to professional player Making the ATP Ranking at the age of 18-19 Learning from losing & winning, always look where you want to be 6 months in the future, improved ranking 11 years in a row Dealing with losing every week (at least once) Started early to learn other business beyond tennis from Coach Toughest loss – becomes winning the Silver Medal in Doubles at the Olympics with Nicolas Kiefer later Learning for business from his tennis career Taking over the ATP World Team Cup in Duesseldorf, now ATP 250 event in Geneva, partnered with Ion Tiriac His event also a Covid-19 victim and learning from this Thoughts on tennis and the rest of the season Life now, German Fed Cup Captain, his own event, attending the Grand Slams, etc   About Rainer Schüttler is a retired German professional tennis player. As of 2019, he is the most recent male German player to reach the singles final of a Grand Slam tournament, finishing as runner-up at the 2003 Australian Open. Schüttler also won a silver medal in doubles at the 2004 Summer Olympics and achieved a career-high ranking of world No. 5 in April 2004. He began playing tennis at the age of nine. He resides in Switzerland. In 2003, Schüttler became the first German since Boris Becker in 1989 to advance to the fourth round at all Grand Slams. He became the first German to reach a Grand Slam final, at the Australian Open, since Michael Stich was the runner-up at Roland Garros in 1996. En route to the final, which he lost in straight sets to Andre Agassi, he defeated Andy Roddick who would end the season as world No 1. In 2004, Schüttler reached his first career ATP Masters Series final in Monte Carlo by beating Gustavo Kuerten in the first round, Lleyton Hewitt in the third round, Tim Henman in the quarterfinal and Carlos Moyá in the semifinal. In the final, he lost to Guillermo Coria. That week, he would reach a career-high ranking of No. 5. Schüttler won a silver medal for Germany in men's doubles with partner Nicolas Kiefer at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens. 2004 was the sixth straight year in which he finished in the ATP top 50. Schüttler reached his first career semifinal at Wimbledon by beating Santiago Ventura, James Blake, Guillermo García-López, Janko Tipsarević, and Arnaud Clément 6–3, 5–7, 7–6, 6–7, 8–6. His match with Clément was over five hours, completed in two days to reach the semifinals, in which Schuettler saved a match point at 6–5 down in the fifth set. He was defeated by eventual champion Rafael Nadal 1–6, 6–7, 4–6. His achievement was a big surprise, since he entered the tournament ranked 94th and with a streak of 13 consecutive Grand Slam tournaments without making it past the second round. His 2009 season, Schüttler started off at the Chennai Open, beating Prakash Amritraj 6–2, 4–6, 6–1. In the second round, he beat Simon Greul 6–4, 6–2, and in the quarterfinals Björn Phau, 6–2, 7–5. Unfortunately Schuettler had to withdraw from his semifinal match against Somdev Devvarman because of a wrist injury. He also withdrew from the tournament in Sydney. At the Australian Open, he was seeded 30th but lost in the first round to Israeli Dudi Sela 1–6, 6–2, 6–4, 6–4. He also parti