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2008-02-14 00:27:00
A lot of things have been written about Joachim Johansson’s retirement from professional tennis. Despite his injury struggles the last few years, the announcement came as a big shock to me. I thought that he would keep on trying throughout this year, but the decision is understandable considering the diagnosis given by the experts. It’s very sad to see a 25-year old with such an incredible potential retire half way through his career. Joachim “Pim-Pim” Johansson had an extremely short but spectacular career on the ATP circuit. Interestingly, Johansson’s career prize money ended at just 15 % more than that of one year older fellow Swede Andreas Vinciguerra, who many tennis followers probably don’t consider to be on the same level.
But let’s just illustrate how short Johansson’s career has been. The tall Swede played a total of 119 singles matches on the main tour level (including Davis Cup), winning 66 of these. He only participated in 52 tour level tournaments (less than many players do in two seasons), and won three of these (Memphis 2004, Adelaide 2005 and Marseille 2005). He reached the Top 100 in December 2003, and stayed there until January 2006, after which he never found his way back. In total, he was there for just slightly more than two years. About halfway through his time in the top 100, his ranking had risen to a spot in the Top 10, when he reached a career high of 9 on 14 February 2005. He was back in the top 10 for three weeks in June of that year, after which Johansson began free falling in the rankings. Less than a year after peaking at No. 9, Johansson found himself outside the top 100. Can anyone think of a player who reached the top 10 but was ranked in the top 100 during fewer weeks than Johansson? Maybe there is one, but I sure can’t think of one from the top of my head.
Even with such a short career, Johansson will be remembered for having one of the greatest serves ever seen in the game, and a very impressive mental strength at crucial moments. Isn’t this quite some way to save a match point in your home tournament?
www.youtube.com/watch?v=0zeza9uvscI
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