Santiago Giraldo life and biography

Santiago Giraldo is a Colombian male tennis player from Pereira in Colombia. He plays on the ATP tour and represents Colombia in the Davis Cup competition.

CAREER:

Since turning professional in 2006, Santiago Giraldo has competed in lower events at Buenos Aries, Bogotá and Asunción. He reached the final at Bogotá in October 2007 but he lost out in straight sets. Giraldo reached his first Grand Slam main draw at the 2007 French Open, where he lost to Novak Djoković.

Santiago played in his first major non-Grand Slam singles tournament on 12–15 March 2008, the Masters Series Pacific Life Open, where he lost to then World No. 2 Rafael Nadal 6–3, 6–3, in the second round. He beat Werner Eschauer in the first round after coming through two rounds of qualifying. Giraldo then qualified for the 2008 Sony Ericsson Open, where he lost in round 1. He played in the 2008 French Open after the withdrawal of home-favourite Richard Gasquet through injury, but he lost in the first round against Florent Serra of France.

He qualified for the 2009 French Open, but lost to Denis Istomin in the first round.

At the 2010 Australian Open, he saw off Seed #16 Tommy Robredo 6–4, 6–2, 6–2 in the first round. However, he lost in the second round to Łukasz Kubot 4–6, 6–3, 3–6, 1–6.

At the 2010 Internazionali BNL d'Italia in Rome, a Masters 1000 event, he produced a heavy ground game to crush down 12th seed Juan Carlos Ferrero 6–0, 6–3 in the first round, followed by a 6–3, 6–2 win over Michaël Llodra in the second round. However his run was ended at the hands of World No.10 and 7th seed Jo-Wilfried Tsonga 3–6, 4–6 in the third round.

At the 2011 Heineken Open in Auckland, New Zealand, Santiago made it to the semi-finals, where he lost to David Ferrer 3–6, 5–7. At the 2011 Australian Open, he reached second round where he lost to Marin Čilić 3–6, 6–7(1), 1–6. He also reached the final of the 2011 Movistar Open where he lost to Tommy Robredo 2–6, 6–2, 6–7(5) despite serving for the championship at 5–3.

PERSONAL:
Began playing tennis at age five
Nicknamed "Santi"
Most inspirational people in his life are his parents, Elsa and Eduardo
Has one older brother, Daniel (28), and older sister, Carmina (31), who used to play Fed Cup for Colombia
Likes to watch movies (comedy), listen to music (reggae), and read (drama)
His idol is Colombian President Alvaro Uribe
Considers hard courts as favorite surface
Member of Colombian Davis Cup team and has a 5-3 career singles record
If he wasn't a tennis player he would be a politician or journalist
Fitness trainer is Javier Benet and coached by Ricardo Sanchez.

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