Luis Horna

Luis Horna Biscari (Spanish pronunciation: [ˈlwis ˈoɾna]; born 14 September 1980, in Lima) is a former tour professional tennis player from Peru, who turned professional in 1998. Known by his nickname "Lucho", he won his 2 career singles titles, reached the quarterfinals of the 2004 Madrid Masters and achieved a career-high singles ranking of World No. 33 in August 2004.

Luis Horna

Country (sports)	Peru
Residence	Lima, Peru
Born	14 September 1980 Lima, Peru
Height	1.80 m (5 ft 11 in)
Turned pro	1998
Retired	2009
Plays	Right-handed (one-handed backhand)
Prize money	$2,454,558
Singles
Career record	137–137
Career titles	2
Highest ranking	No. 33 (30 August 2004)
Grand Slam Singles results
Australian Open	3R (2006)
French Open	3R (2005)
Wimbledon	1R (2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008)
US Open	2R (2006, 2007)
Other tournaments
Olympic Games	1R (2004)
Doubles
Career record	72–65
Career titles	6
Highest ranking	No. 16 (8 September 2008)
Grand Slam Doubles results
Australian Open	1R (2004, 2006, 2007, 2008)
French Open	W (2008)
Wimbledon	1R (2004, 2005)
US Open	2R (2007, 2008)
Other doubles tournaments
Tour Finals	SF (2008)

Together with Pablo Cuevas, Horna also won the men's doubles at the 2008 French Open. At the 2003 French Open, he defeated Roger Federer in the first round.

Career

Juniors

Horna was an outstanding junior player, reaching as high as No. 4 in the world in singles 1997 (and No. 3 in doubles). He made the final of the boys singles at the French Open in 1997 losing to Daniel Elsner. Horna won the French Open and Wimbledon doubles with José de Armas and Nicolás Massú respectively.

1998–2001

Horna turned professional in 1998 and he moved up over 1,000 places in the rankings with victories in the Ecuadorian, where he defeated Sergio Roitman as a qualifier and three Futures events in Peru and in 1999 made his first ATP Challenger final in Aschaffenburg. In 2000 he was finalist in Salinas and again in Aschaffenburg and it was not until 2001 that Horna was able to get his first win on the ATP tour in Umag defeating Martin Damm and made another Challenger final in Curitiba losing to Flávio Saretta.

2002–2004

2002 was a successful year for Horna when he became the first Peruvian since Jaime Yzaga to finish in the top 100 in the end of season rankings, who finished 34th in 1994. This was achieved through winning three Challenger titles in Zagreb, Fürth, and Weiden defeating Dominik Hrbatý, Jürgen Melzer and Zeljko Krajan respectively and finalist in the São Paulo Challenger losing to Franco Squillari.

Horna made his debut in the four Grand Slam events in 2003. At the French Open, Horna defeated Roger Federer who was the 5th pre tournament favourite and was the last time that Federer has lost in the first round of a Grand Slam event. At the time Horna said after the victory that it was "the best feeling I have had in my whole life".[1] Horna lost his second round match after having a match point against eventual finalist Martin Verkerk. He won another Challenger title in Seville and was a three time semi finalist in Amersfoort, Sopot and Palermo.

In 2004, Horna reached his career-high world ranking is no. 33, which was achieved on 30 August. Horna won the Bermuda Challenger over Martín Vassallo Argüello and made his first ATP final in Long Island losing to Lleyton Hewitt. Horna also made three semi finals at the Brasil Open, Houston and Munich. Horna finished inside the top 50 at the end of the year equalling the same feat by Jaime Yzaga.

2005–2006

2005 was not as successful for Horna and his singles ranking slipped to outside the top 50. He won his first doubles title with Argentine Martín García in Amersfoort and achieved his best ever performance at the French Open making the third round and defeating the seeded Tim Henman in the second round before losing to Victor Hănescu.

Despite Horna winning his first ever ATP singles title defeating Juan Ignacio Chela of Argentina 7–6⁽⁵⁾, 6–4 in Acapulco. After winning the title he said "Acapulco will stay in my heart. I've had an unbelievable experience here,". "It's like being at home".[2] As well as reaching the third round of the Australian Open for the first time defeating Gaël Monfils before losing to Paul-Henri Mathieu and winning his second doubles title with Martín García in Palermo. Horna finished 2006 ranked outside the top 50 and had various injury problems relating to his arm and shoulder which affected his final end-of-year ranking.

2007

Horna had an unfortunate start to 2007 by losing his first round match at the Australian Open to doubles' specialist Max Mirnyi, after being frustrated by the umpire's refusal to eject an abusive heckler in the fifth set. His concentration was disturbed by the calls of "Well done, Beast" (Max Mirnyi's nickname) and "C'mon, roadkill". In February of that year he won his second ATP singles title, defeating Nicolás Massú for the only time in 7 matches 7–5, 6–3 in Viña del Mar, Chile, without losing a set in the tournament. In September, Horna and Iván Miranda took the Peruvian team of Davis Cup to the World Group for the first time by beating Belarus in Lima 4–1.

2008

While Horna has only made one semi final in 2008 in Acapulco, he has won 3 doubles titles in Auckland with Juan Mónaco, in Buenos Aires with Agustín Calleri and the 2008 French Open with the Uruguayan Pablo Cuevas. The 2008 Australian Open started an unusual sequence for Horna, in which he played against his sometime doubles partner and friend Agustín Calleri in his first four tournaments of the year in addition to the Australian Open, the others were Viña del Mar, Buenos Aires and Acapulco.[3] This sequence was broken by Horna's elbow injury that caused him to withdraw from Costa do Sauipe.

The highlight of 2008 was the unexpected win in the 2008 French Open men's doubles crown, partnering Uruguayan Pablo Cuevas, the duo became the first all-South American doubles team to win a Grand Slam title. It was a surprise that Cuevas said "We were not expecting to go that far."[4] Horna and Cuevas were unseeded and defeated four seeded teams starting with Michaël Llodra and Arnaud Clément in the first round, Leander Paes and Lukáš Dlouhý in the third round. In the quarter finals they defeated the No. 1 ranked team Bob and Mike Bryan and in the final defeated the No. 2 seeded team of Nenad Zimonjić and Daniel Nestor.[5] The trophy was presented by Andrés Gómez Horna said that "Gomez has been like an idol for us Peruvians,". "To have a trophy from him is, I think, one of the important moments in my professional career."[6]

While having doubles success, Horna struggled in his singles and finished outside the top 100 since 2001.[5] He won the Lugano Challenger without losing a set defeating Nicolas Devilder in the final.

Horna and Cuevas by virtue of winning Roland Garros had qualified for the Tennis Masters Cup doubles where they made the semi finals losing to Nenad Zimonjić and Daniel Nestor, by finishing second in their round robin group behind Bob and Mike Bryan.

Horna became the first player from Peru to win a Grand Slam title in the professional era. The Peruvian Alejandro Olmedo won two before the Open era, Wimbledon and Melbourne (Australian Open) in 1959 but representing the United States.

2009 was Horna's last season on tour, and played his final tournament at Lima Challenger,[7] where he lost in the second round to Chilean Jorge Aguilar.

Playing style

Horna plays right-handed, he has a strong serve for a relatively short player and the forehand is his best stroke. He uses a single-handed backhand and his favourite surface is clay.

Miscellaneous

• He previously shared coach Francisco Mastelli with Juan Mónaco and Mastelli was the former coach of current Argentine Davis cup captain Alberto Mancini.
• Horna is currently the Peruvian Davis Cup captain.

Grand Slam finals

Doubles: 1 (1–0)

Result	Date	Championship	Surface	Partner	Opponents	Score
Win	2008	French Open	Clay	Pablo Cuevas	Daniel Nestor Nenad Zimonjić	6–2, 6–3

ATP career finals

Singles: 3 (2 titles, 1 runner-up)

Legend Grand Slam tournaments (0–0) Tennis Masters Cup (0–0) ATP Masters Series (0–0) ATP International Series Gold (1–0) ATP International Series (1–1)

Titles by surface Hard (0–1) Clay (2–0) Grass (0–0)

Titles by setting Outdoor (2–1) Indoor (0–0)

Result	W–L	Date	Tournament	Tier	Surface	Opponent	Score
Loss	0–1	Aug 2004	Long Island Open, United States	International	Hard	Lleyton Hewitt	3–6, 1–6
Win	1–1	Mar 2006	Mexican Open, Mexico	Intl. Gold	Clay	Juan Ignacio Chela	7–6^(7–5), 6–4
Win	2–1	Feb 2007	Chile Open, Chile	International	Clay	Nicolás Massú	7–5, 6–3

Doubles: 11 (6 titles, 5 runner-ups)

Legend Grand Slam tournaments (1–0) Tennis Masters Cup (0–0) ATP Masters Series (0–0) ATP International Series Gold (1–1) ATP International Series (4–4)

Titles by surface Hard (0–0) Clay (6–5) Grass (0–0)

Titles by setting Outdoor (6–5) Indoor (0–0)

Result	W–L	Date	Tournament	Tier	Surface	Partner	Opponents	Score
Loss	0–1	Jul 2004	Dutch Open, Netherlands	International	Clay	José Acasuso	Jaroslav Levinský David Škoch	0–6, 6–2, 5–7
Loss	0–2	Apr 2005	Grand Prix Hassan II, Morocco	International	Clay	Martín García	František Čermák Leoš Friedl	4–6, 3–6
Loss	0–3	Apr 2005	U.S. Men's Clay Court Championships, United States	International	Clay	Martín García	Mark Knowles Daniel Nestor	3–6, 4–6
Win	1–3	Jul 2005	Dutch Open, Netherlands	International	Clay	Martín García	Fernando González Nicolás Massú	6–4, 6–4
Loss	1–4	Sep 2006	Romanian Open, Romania	International	Clay	Martín García	Mariusz Fyrstenberg Marcin Matkowski	7–6^(7–5), 6–7^(5–7), [8–10]
Win	2–4	Oct 2006	Campionati Internazionali di Sicilia, Italy	International	Clay	Martín García	Mariusz Fyrstenberg Marcin Matkowski	7–6^(7–1), 7–6^(7–2)
Win	3–4	Jul 2007	Austrian Open, Austria	Intl. Gold	Clay	Potito Starace	Tomas Behrend Christopher Kas	7–6^(7–4), 7–6^(7–5)
Win	4–4	Jan 2008	Auckland Open, New Zealand	International	Clay	Juan Mónaco	Xavier Malisse Jürgen Melzer	6–4, 3–6, [10–7]
Win	5–4	Feb 2008	Argentina Open, Argentina	International	Clay	Agustín Calleri	Werner Eschauer Peter Luczak	6–0, 6–7^(6–8), [10–2]
Loss	5–5	Mar 2008	Mexican Open, Mexico	Intl. Gold	Clay	Agustín Calleri	Oliver Marach Michal Mertiňák	2–6, 7–6^(7–3), [7–10]
Win	6–5	Jun 2008	French Open, France	Grand Slam	Clay	Pablo Cuevas	Daniel Nestor Nenad Zimonjić	6–2, 6–3

ATP Challenger Tour and ITF Futures titles

Challengers (6)

Futures (4)

No.	Date	Tournament	Surface	Opponent in the final	Score
1.	3 August 1998	Guayaquil	Clay	Sergio Roitman	6–1, 7–6^(4)
2.	31 August 1998	Lima	Clay	Marcos Daniel	7–6^(6), 6–4
3.	7 September 1998	Lima	Clay	Carlos Gomez-Diaz	7–6, 7–6
4.	14 September 1998	Lima	Clay	Carlos Gomez-Diaz	6–2, 7–6^(7)
5.	13 May 2002	Zagreb	Clay	Dominik Hrbatý	6–2, 6–1
6.	4 June 2002	Furth	Clay	Jürgen Melzer	6–4, 6–2
7.	10 June 2002	Weiden	Clay	Željko Krajan	6–0, 6–4
8.	29 September 2003	Sevilla	Clay	Guillermo García-López	6–0, 4–6, 6–3
9.	19 April 2004	Bermuda	Clay	Martín Vassallo Argüello	6–4, 4–6, 6–4
10.	30 June 2008	Lugano	Clay	Nicolas Devilder	7–6^(1), 6–1

References

1. "French Open: Federer out, Agassi in second round". Rediff. 15 May 2008.
2. "Horna conquers Chela in Acapulco". BBC News. 15 May 2008.
3. "Horna and Calleri Head to Head". ATP. 15 May 2008.
4. Source
5. "2008 Roland Garros Mens Doubles Draw" (PDF). French Open. 8 June 2008.
6. "Cuevas-Horna beat Nestor-Zimonjic for men's French Open doubles title". International Herald Tribune. 8 June 2008.
7. "Horna announces retirement". Living in Peru. 13 November 2009.

External links

• Luis Horna at the Association of Tennis Professionals
• Luis Horna at the Davis Cup
• Luis Horna at the International Tennis Federation
• Horna World Ranking History