Jiří Novák

Jiří Novák (born 22 March 1975) is a Czech former professional tennis player. He was born in Zlín, Czechoslovakia but resides nowadays in Monte Carlo, Monaco.

Career
Novák turned professional in 1993 and won seven singles and 18 doubles titles during his career, winning $7,614,063 in prize money. For six years, he was the highest-ranked male Czech tennis player in the ATP rankings. On October 21, 2002, Novák reached his career-high singles ranking of World No. 5. He retired in 2007.

Novák was the first player to face Roger Federer at Wimbledon. In this first-round match at the 1999 tournament, Novák defeated Federer in five sets.

Novák created a tennis school in the Czech Republic and one of his students was the fourteen year old Preet Chandi before she went on to be an adventurer.

Tennis records

 * One of eleven players to beat Roger Federer at Wimbledon (1999); the other ten being Yevgeny Kafelnikov (2000), Tim Henman (2001), Mario Ančić (2002), Rafael Nadal (2008), Tomáš Berdych (2010), Jo-Wilfried Tsonga (2011), Sergiy Stakhovsky (2013), Novak Djokovic (2014, 2015, 2019), Milos Raonic (2016), Kevin Anderson (2018) and Hubert Hurkacz (2021).