10 Facts About Tomas Behrend

1.

Tomas Ugo Behrend was born on 12 December 1974 and is a German former professional tennis player.

2.

Tomas Behrend has opened up a tennis academy in his hometown of Alsdorf called ToBe.

3.

Tomas Behrend is of German descent and was born in Porto Alegre and raised in Novo Hamburgo where his father Claudio who was a volleyball player owns and runs a graphic and printing company.

4.

Tomas Behrend started playing tennis at the age of five and in addition to playing tennis as a youngster he swam and played football, handball and volleyball before focusing on tennis.

5.

Tomas Behrend has three brothers and is a fan of the Gremio and Borussia Dortmund football teams.

6.

Tomas Behrend won his first Futures and Challenger title in 1998, while he did not have great success on the main tour.

7.

Tomas Behrend managed to hold both positive head-to-head records against two former world number ones Carlos Moya who he defeated twice when Moya was in the top 10, one of them in his country of birth and the other win in his adopted country and Juan Carlos Ferrero who he defeated at Palermo in 2005 which was where he had his best tournament result on the ATP tour reaching the semi-finals losing to Filippo Volandri.

8.

In spite of the loss Tomas Behrend said " To represent a nation in the World Group of Davis Cup is the dream for any player and at 28, perhaps this was my last chance".

9.

Tomas Behrend believes that there was no opportunity for him at the start of his career to become a professional in Brazil and in Germany he was able to receive financial assistance.

10.

Tomas Behrend had always wanted to be called up by Brazil, but was upset at the politics behind the scenes, when it came to the fourth player, given that Gustavo Kuerten, Fernando Meligeni and Flavio Saretta were all fit, then they were selected and the often the fourth member was ranked behind him in the rankings, therefore "I am a Brazilian with a German passport".