Male tennis in Estonia is taking baby steps. Of course, Jurgen Zopp is not a celebrity as Kaia Kanepi who is being followed everywhere by press, but he is the only one who kind of "made it."

He was born on 23rd March 1988. As most guys from this part of Europe, because of obvious difficulties in here, he is kind of a late bloomer. He achieved his career high #186 in April 2011.

Zopp comes from a relatively wealthy family, at least well off enough to help him start. His grandfather has lately built a tennis court next to their house near Tallinn (Estonia capital) and his dad is still playing there. Jürgen also has a sister.

He graduated from sports high school in Estonia. At some point ITF funded a scholarship for four most talented youngsters in Estonia and sent them to a tennis camp in Prague. The guys weren't too happy with the work ethic necessary in that place and only Jurgen decided to continue. His coach back then was Petr Kovacka. Since the spring of 2010 he is coached by Pasi Virtanen and last winter he spent 2 weeks training with Jarkko Nieminen in Helsinki, he didn't have good enough sparring here. He himself said in some interview that maybe he should set higher goals, he wants to reach top 50. People in Estonia claim he has done pretty well for himself this year (and last year already with Virtanen). Let's see where it takes him. He is not that big of a celebrity in his country to have big interviews, the good results get reported though and now just short reports about the injury when he was playing the Estonian championships, the Davis Cup and the ITF in Tallinn and the challenger in Tampere. After that he took a break to rest the wrist that he injured during Wimbledon 2011. He's also still got some good sponsors.

He seems pretty nice, he himself says he is not a huge party-goer but also not a home-sitter, like something in-between.

Roger Federer and Radek Stepanek were his idols while growing up, but in his game he wants to play like Tomas Berdych and Robin Soderling. He is quite a powerful hitter and with the Finnish coach he worked on the serve. His height (190 cm) should be good for such game. He's not the master tactician on the court, but Virtanen made him play more aggressively. Jürgen himself said that before he didn't know whether he was more of a counter-puncher or an attacker.

Semifinals in challengers in Samarkand, Bath and Bergamo are his biggest successes up to date.

Maria V

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