30.05.2016 10:18:58 | Ricardas Berankis of Lithuania, who will turn twenty six in less than a month, is currently No. 50 in the world rankings and the top seed at the UniCredit Czech Open 2016. What has been his greatest achievement so far? He won the European U14 junior championship in 2004, was the best player at the Orange Bowl and, most importantly, won the prestigious a Eddie Herr Championship. As a junior, he continued his well established career and appeared at all Junior Grand Slams in 2007: he made it through to the semi-final in Melbourne, to the last eight in Roland Garros, the semi-final at Wimbledon and, finally, he won the US Open.
After his triumph in New York, he won the Orange Bowl for the second time and finished the season as the ITF Junior World Champion. Berankis made it through to the semi-final at the ATP tournament in Memphis in February this year in which he succumbed to the great American hope Taylor Fritz. Fritz was the junior No. 1 in the world last year and won the US Open in his category. In his career, Ricardas Berankis has won one ATP World Tour tournament in doubles with Teimuraz Gabašvili in Houstonu last year. They qualified to the tournament as replacement players and beat the top seeded Bryan brothers 7:6(4), 7:5 in the quarter-final. Berankis has won five titles in doubles at the Futures and was a runner-up six times by June 2016. How successful has he been at Grand Slams this year? He lost to Alexandr Dolgopolov of Ukraine in the first round in Melbourne and succumbed to the home player Nicolas Mahut in the opening match at Roland Garros.
