Steve Darcis

Steve Darcis was born 13th March 1984 in Liege, Belgium and achieved his career high ranking of #44 on 12th May 2008.

At the Dutch Open in July, 2007, in his 3rd career ATP-level tournament, he won his first ATP-level singles match and then went on to win the tournament, catapulting him into the top-150 for the first time. He beat all top-60 players en route to the title, including world #13 Mikhail Youzhny in the semi-final. His low ranking coming into the week meant that he also had to win 3 qualifying matches just to make the main draw, and his ranking of #297 made him one of the lowest ranked ATP tournament winners since 1985. Lleyton Hewitt holds the record, having been ranked #550 before winning in Adelaide in 1998.

In his next tournament in Sopot, two weeks later, he went through qualifying and defeated Nicolas Massu in round 1 to set up a confrontation with Tommy Robredo in round 2. Robredo defeated Darcis in three sets (6–1 0–6 5–7), ending Darcis' winning streak at 12 matches. Darcis entered the top 100 on 26 November 2007 by winning a Challenger event in Finland. He became World Number 86. On 2 March 2008, Darcis won his second ATP event at the Regions Morgan Keegan Championships, beating Swede Robin Soderling in the final 6–3 7–6.