1. Mariano Zabaleta was born on 28 February 1978 and is a retired professional male tennis player from Argentina.
24 Facts About Mariano Zabaleta
1. 2.
Mariano Zabaleta's best shot was his forehand and his favourite surface was clay.
3.
Mariano Zabaleta achieved a career-high singles ranking of World No 21.
4.
Mariano Zabaleta won three of the major junior events in 1995.
5.
Mariano Zabaleta struggled initially with the transition from juniors to seniors.
6.
In 1999, Mariano Zabaleta was a finalist on three occasions without winning a title, his best performance was reaching the final of the Hamburg Masters against Marcelo Rios.
7.
Mariano Zabaleta lost to Rios again in St Polten and in Amsterdam to Younes El Aynaoui.
8.
Mariano Zabaleta's father was hurt in the disturbances and required 10 stitches and the Argentines did not complete the tie after they were escorted from the court by police.
9.
Mariano Zabaleta reached the third round of the Olympics in Sydney defeating Marcelo Rios and Jeff Tarango before losing to Max Mirnyi.
10.
Mariano Zabaleta defeated Sebastien Grosjean who was in the top 10 at the time, in the first round, then Taylor Dent, Greg Rusedski and Xavier Malisse were beaten before Marat Safin ended his run.
11.
Mariano Zabaleta reached the fourth round of the 2002 French Open defeating top 10 player Yevgeny Kafelnikov and falling to Alex Corretja.
12.
Mariano Zabaleta made the semis in Auckland and Scottsdale losing to Gustavo Kuerten and Mark Philippoussis respectively, he made first his final since 1999 at Acapulco in the process avenging the defeat in Auckland by Gustavo Kuerten in the semi-finals before losing to Agustin Calleri.
13.
Mariano Zabaleta matched his fourth round showing from the previous year at the French Open losing to Guillermo Coria in a match that lasted over 4 hours and 41 minutes and went to 5 sets.
14.
At the after match presentation the organisers played a recording of the ABBA song "Money, Money, Money" that Mariano Zabaleta made with Younes El Aynaoui which the crowd enjoyed and had a good laugh about.
15.
Mariano Zabaleta followed up with a semi final in Kitzbuhel losing to reigning French Open champion Juan Carlos Ferrero.
16.
Mariano Zabaleta made the semi-finals of the Italian Open defeating Tim Henman and Nicolas Massu who were both in the top 15 at the time, before losing to Carlos Moya.
17.
Mariano Zabaleta had quarter final appearances in Vina del Mar, Buenos Aires and Kitzbuhel.
18.
Mariano Zabaleta started 2005 with quarter final appearances in Vina del Mar losing to Fernando Gonzalez.
19.
Mariano Zabaleta came back to play in Bastad and lost in the quarter-finals to Tomas Berdych and made the semi-finals in Kitzbuhel and after a series of poor results, then he had surgery on his knee.
20.
Mariano Zabaleta continued to suffer knee problems in 2006 and finished outside the top 100 for the first time since 1997.
21.
Mariano Zabaleta started 2007 by winning the La Serena Challenger defeating Juan-Pablo Brzezicki and was a finalist in Florianopolis losing to Oscar Hernandez.
22.
Mariano Zabaleta won the Bermuda Challenger and with this victory took him back inside the top 100 in the ATP rankings.
23.
In 2008, Mariano Zabaleta suffered very poor results, which led to him dropping beyond top 1000.
24.
Mariano Zabaleta has no relation to the former West Ham United and Manchester City footballer Pablo Mariano Zabaleta, although the latter was interviewed by the former for a football website.