Wonderful World of Tennis / Sean Calvert / 14 October 2010 /

Roberto Carretero anyone? Vince Spadea? Names you may have at the back of your mind somewhere but hardly players who had scintillating careers. Sean Calvert tells us why they both get a mention here...

Does the name Roberto Carretero ring any bells? No? That's not surprising really as he retired from tennis 10 years ago, but his largely insignificant career had one major point of interest.

As the world number 146, Spaniard Carretero stunned the tennis world by winning the ATP Masters Hamburg event in 1996. It was his only tour level championship win and this week we salute Robby C and his fellow one hit wonders of tennis.

Carretero was a jobbing clay courter whose highest singles world ranking was 58 and whose overall career record reads 23 wins and 45 losses, but for one week on the red dirt of Hamburg he was the man.

Beating the likes of French and Australian Open champion Yevgeny Kafelnikov and French Open runner-up Alex Corretja, Carretero walked away with one of the biggest prizes in the game.

But instead of building on that win and climbing up the rankings, he went on to lose in the first round of his next four tournaments and racked up 15 first round losses in that same year of 1996, where Hamburg apart, he failed to better the last eight of any event.

To put his win into a present day context, that would be the same as current 146 Igor Sisling rocking up and winning a Masters event, taking out a Murray or Djokovic along the way.

And Carretero is far from alone as a one hit wonder. There are on average at least three or four players each year that win their first event and never again taste the sweetness of a second tournament win.

Take one Mr William 'Bill' Bowery for example. Bill, as I'm sure you're all too aware, won the Australian Open in 1967 as an amateur and failed to win another event, finishing with a 51-76 win/loss mark overall.

Bowery's highest ever world ranking of 162 wasn't much to shout about either, but that's a little misleading as he played most of his tennis before the rankings system was implemented.

One-time major winners are rare in the men's game, with the most well-known being Gaston Gaudio, who claimed the French Open title in 2004 after one of the most infamous chokes of all time from opponent Guillermo Coria.

Gaudio was number 44 in the world when he won at Roland Garros and didn't get further than the last 16 of any Grand Slam after that Paris triumph.

The Argentine is still playing even now and why wouldn't he after once famously suggesting that his motivation for playing was 'when you're a player you have more sex'.

I could also put Sweden's Thomas Johansson in that category with Gaudio as his 2002 Australian Open win was a complete one-off.

To-Jo at least had the decency to be inside the world's top 20 when he won it though and was a former US Open quarter finalist and went on to reach the semis at Wimbledon three years later, so he's not quite in the same class as the others.

Five years after Carretero's win, the Masters event in Hamburg came under siege again from another Spanish one-hit wonder.

Barcelona's Albert Portas took the substantial winnings this time and from number 42 in the world, took out Magnus Norman (ranked 9), Lleyton Hewitt (7) and in the final came from two sets to one down to beat none other than 'The Mosquito' Juan Carlos Ferrero (6).

Portas did make three more finals in a career that peaked at world number 19, but which ended with a 142-198 losing record and needless to say he lost all three.

When talking about one-hit wonders it's vital that we keep Britain's proud tennis tradition intact by mentioning our own Jeremy Bates, who won in Seoul, South Korea in 1994.

It was Bates's only career final and I won't devalue it by mentioning that the highest ranked player he beat that week was number 67 Chuck Adams. At least Bates went on to beat Boris Becker at Queen's that year.

Talking of Queen's, another memorable one-off was Aussie Scott Draper winning there in 1998, ranked 108 in the world.

Draper beat Pat Rafter en route to one of the worst ever tour finals in terms of rankings against number 253 Laurence Tieleman.

If it's random winners you're after then the best place to go would have to be Casablanca, Morocco, the champion's graveyard, where you rarely win another title after tasting victory there.

Gilbert Schaller, Hicham Arazi, Julien Boutter, Santiago Ventura, Mariano Puerta and Daniele Bracciali were all one time winners there since 1990.

I can't write an article about one-off winners without mentioning the legendary Vinny Spadea, who won his sole crown in Scottsdale in 2004 and reached number 18 in the world over a career (so far) that's lasted 670 matches.

Vinny is more famous of course for an eight month, 21 match losing streak on tour, which he ended by beating Greg Rusedski at Wimbledon. He did reach four other finals but lost them all.

Former American Davis Cup captain Patrick McEnroe was always going to be in the shadow of older brother John, who won 77 career titles and it's no surprise to find Mac junior on our list of one hit wonders.

Patrick beat Richard Krajicek en route to winning Sydney in 1995 after three previous losing finals, but failed to make another championship decider.

Finally, those who are currently battling to avoid joining our less-than-illustrious list are Jarkko Nieminen (Auckland 2006), Marcel Granollers (Houston 2008), Philipp Petzschner (Vienna 2008), Ricardo Mello (Delray Beach 2004) and maybe even young Kei Neshkoro (Delray Beach 2008).

It will take something really special to top Carretero though.

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