1.
Japan
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Japan is a sovereign island nation in Eastern Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies off the eastern coast of the Asia Mainland and stretches from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea, the kanji that make up Japans name mean sun origin. 日 can be read as ni and means sun while 本 can be read as hon, or pon, Japan is often referred to by the famous epithet Land of the Rising Sun in reference to its Japanese name. Japan is an archipelago consisting of about 6,852 islands. The four largest are Honshu, Hokkaido, Kyushu and Shikoku, the country is divided into 47 prefectures in eight regions. Hokkaido being the northernmost prefecture and Okinawa being the southernmost one, the population of 127 million is the worlds tenth largest. Japanese people make up 98. 5% of Japans total population, approximately 9.1 million people live in the city of Tokyo, the capital of Japan. Archaeological research indicates that Japan was inhabited as early as the Upper Paleolithic period, the first written mention of Japan is in Chinese history texts from the 1st century AD. Influence from other regions, mainly China, followed by periods of isolation, from the 12th century until 1868, Japan was ruled by successive feudal military shoguns who ruled in the name of the Emperor. Japan entered into a period of isolation in the early 17th century. The Second Sino-Japanese War of 1937 expanded into part of World War II in 1941, which came to an end in 1945 following the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Japan is a member of the UN, the OECD, the G7, the G8, the country has the worlds third-largest economy by nominal GDP and the worlds fourth-largest economy by purchasing power parity. It is also the worlds fourth-largest exporter and fourth-largest importer, although Japan has officially renounced its right to declare war, it maintains a modern military with the worlds eighth-largest military budget, used for self-defense and peacekeeping roles. Japan is a country with a very high standard of living. Its population enjoys the highest life expectancy and the third lowest infant mortality rate in the world, in ancient China, Japan was called Wo 倭. It was mentioned in the third century Chinese historical text Records of the Three Kingdoms in the section for the Wei kingdom, Wa became disliked because it has the connotation of the character 矮, meaning dwarf. The 倭 kanji has been replaced with the homophone Wa, meaning harmony, the Japanese word for Japan is 日本, which is pronounced Nippon or Nihon and literally means the origin of the sun. The earliest record of the name Nihon appears in the Chinese historical records of the Tang dynasty, at the start of the seventh century, a delegation from Japan introduced their country as Nihon
2.
Valencia
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Its urban area extends beyond the administrative city limits with a population of around 1. 5–1.6 million people. Valencia is Spains third largest metropolitan area, with a population ranging from 1.7 to 2.5 million, the Port of Valencia is the 5th busiest container port in Europe and the busiest container port on the Mediterranean Sea. The city is ranked at Gamma in the Globalization and World Cities Research Network, Valencia was founded as a Roman colony by the consul Decimus Junius Brutus Callaicus in 138 BC, and called Valentia Edetanorum. In 1238 the Christian king James I of Aragon reconquered the city and divided the land among the nobles who helped him conquer it and he also created a new law for the city, the Furs of Valencia, which were extended to the rest of the Kingdom of Valencia. In the 18th century Philip V of Spain abolished the privileges as punishment to the kingdom of Valencia for aligning with the Habsburg side in the War of the Spanish Succession, Valencia was the capital of Spain when Joseph Bonaparte moved the Court there in the summer of 1812. It also served as capital between 1936 and 1937, during the Second Spanish Republic, the city is situated on the banks of the Turia, on the east coast of the Iberian Peninsula, fronting the Gulf of Valencia on the Mediterranean Sea. Valencia is integrated into an area on the Costa del Azahar. Valencias main festival is the Falles, the traditional Spanish dish, paella, originated in Valencia. The original Latin name of the city was Valentia, meaning strength, or valour, the Roman historian Livy explains that the founding of Valentia in the 2nd century BC was due to the settling of the Roman soldiers who fought against an Iberian rebel, Viriatus. It is not clear if the term Balansiyya was reserved for the entire Taifa of Valencia or also designated the city, by gradual sound changes, Valentia /waˈlentia/ has become Valencia or in Castilian and València in Valencian. In Valencian, the grave accent <è> /ɛ/ contrasts with the acute accent <é> /e/—but the word València is an exception to this rule and it is spelled according to Catalan etymology, though its pronunciation is closer to Vulgar Latin. Valencia stands on the banks of the Turia River, located on the eastern coast of the Iberian Peninsula, at its founding by the Romans, it stood on a river island in the Turia,6.4 km from the sea. The Albufera, a lagoon and estuary about 11 km south of the city, is one of the largest lakes in Spain. The City Council bought the lake from the Crown of Spain for 1,072,980 pesetas in 1911, in 1986, because of its cultural, historical, and ecological value, the Generalitat Valenciana declared it a natural park. Valencia has a Mediterranean climate with short, very mild winters and long, hot and its average annual temperature is 18.4 °C.23.0 °C during the day and 13.8 °C at night. In the coldest month – January, the temperature typically during the day ranges from 14 to 21 °C. In the warmest month – August, the temperature during the day typically ranges from 28–34 °C. Generally, similar temperatures to those experienced in the part of Europe in summer last about 8 months
3.
New York City
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The City of New York, often called New York City or simply New York, is the most populous city in the United States. With an estimated 2015 population of 8,550,405 distributed over an area of about 302.6 square miles. Located at the tip of the state of New York. Home to the headquarters of the United Nations, New York is an important center for international diplomacy and has described as the cultural and financial capital of the world. Situated on one of the worlds largest natural harbors, New York City consists of five boroughs, the five boroughs – Brooklyn, Queens, Manhattan, The Bronx, and Staten Island – were consolidated into a single city in 1898. In 2013, the MSA produced a gross metropolitan product of nearly US$1.39 trillion, in 2012, the CSA generated a GMP of over US$1.55 trillion. NYCs MSA and CSA GDP are higher than all but 11 and 12 countries, New York City traces its origin to its 1624 founding in Lower Manhattan as a trading post by colonists of the Dutch Republic and was named New Amsterdam in 1626. The city and its surroundings came under English control in 1664 and were renamed New York after King Charles II of England granted the lands to his brother, New York served as the capital of the United States from 1785 until 1790. It has been the countrys largest city since 1790, the Statue of Liberty greeted millions of immigrants as they came to the Americas by ship in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and is a symbol of the United States and its democracy. In the 21st century, New York has emerged as a node of creativity and entrepreneurship, social tolerance. Several sources have ranked New York the most photographed city in the world, the names of many of the citys bridges, tapered skyscrapers, and parks are known around the world. Manhattans real estate market is among the most expensive in the world, Manhattans Chinatown incorporates the highest concentration of Chinese people in the Western Hemisphere, with multiple signature Chinatowns developing across the city. Providing continuous 24/7 service, the New York City Subway is one of the most extensive metro systems worldwide, with 472 stations in operation. Over 120 colleges and universities are located in New York City, including Columbia University, New York University, and Rockefeller University, during the Wisconsinan glaciation, the New York City region was situated at the edge of a large ice sheet over 1,000 feet in depth. The ice sheet scraped away large amounts of soil, leaving the bedrock that serves as the foundation for much of New York City today. Later on, movement of the ice sheet would contribute to the separation of what are now Long Island and Staten Island. The first documented visit by a European was in 1524 by Giovanni da Verrazzano, a Florentine explorer in the service of the French crown and he claimed the area for France and named it Nouvelle Angoulême. Heavy ice kept him from further exploration, and he returned to Spain in August and he proceeded to sail up what the Dutch would name the North River, named first by Hudson as the Mauritius after Maurice, Prince of Orange
4.
United States dollar
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The United States dollar is the official currency of the United States and its insular territories per the United States Constitution. It is divided into 100 smaller cent units, the circulating paper money consists of Federal Reserve Notes that are denominated in United States dollars. The U. S. dollar was originally commodity money of silver as enacted by the Coinage Act of 1792 which determined the dollar to be 371 4/16 grain pure or 416 grain standard silver, the currency most used in international transactions, it is the worlds primary reserve currency. Several countries use it as their currency, and in many others it is the de facto currency. Besides the United States, it is used as the sole currency in two British Overseas Territories in the Caribbean, the British Virgin Islands and Turks and Caicos Islands. A few countries use the Federal Reserve Notes for paper money, while the country mints its own coins, or also accepts U. S. coins that can be used as payment in U. S. dollars. After Nixon shock of 1971, USD became fiat currency, Article I, Section 8 of the U. S. Constitution provides that the Congress has the power To coin money, laws implementing this power are currently codified at 31 U. S. C. Section 5112 prescribes the forms in which the United States dollars should be issued and these coins are both designated in Section 5112 as legal tender in payment of debts. The Sacagawea dollar is one example of the copper alloy dollar, the pure silver dollar is known as the American Silver Eagle. Section 5112 also provides for the minting and issuance of other coins and these other coins are more fully described in Coins of the United States dollar. The Constitution provides that a regular Statement and Account of the Receipts and that provision of the Constitution is made specific by Section 331 of Title 31 of the United States Code. The sums of money reported in the Statements are currently being expressed in U. S. dollars, the U. S. dollar may therefore be described as the unit of account of the United States. The word dollar is one of the words in the first paragraph of Section 9 of Article I of the Constitution, there, dollars is a reference to the Spanish milled dollar, a coin that had a monetary value of 8 Spanish units of currency, or reales. In 1792 the U. S. Congress passed a Coinage Act, Section 20 of the act provided, That the money of account of the United States shall be expressed in dollars, or units. And that all accounts in the offices and all proceedings in the courts of the United States shall be kept and had in conformity to this regulation. In other words, this act designated the United States dollar as the unit of currency of the United States, unlike the Spanish milled dollar the U. S. dollar is based upon a decimal system of values. Both one-dollar coins and notes are produced today, although the form is significantly more common
5.
Australian Open
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The Australian Open is a major tennis tournament held annually over the last fortnight of January in Melbourne, Australia. First held in 1905, the tournament is chronologically the first of the four Grand Slam tennis events of the year – the other three being the French Open, Wimbledon and the US Open. It features mens and womens singles, mens, womens and mixed doubles and juniors championships, as well as wheelchair, legends, the Australian Open typically has high attendances, rivalling and occasionally exceeding the US Open. The tournament holds the record for the highest attendance at a Grand Slam event, the Australian Open is managed by Tennis Australia, formerly the Lawn Tennis Association of Australia, and was first played at the Warehousemans Cricket Ground in Melbourne in November 1905. This facility is now known as the Albert Reserve Tennis Centre, the tournament was first known as the Australasian Championships and then became the Australian Championships in 1927 and the Australian Open in 1969. Since 1905, the Australian Open has been staged in five Australian and two New Zealand cities, Melbourne, Sydney, Adelaide, Brisbane, Perth, Christchurch and Hastings. Though started in 1905, the tournament was not designated as being a championship until 1924. The tournament committee changed the structure of the tournament to include seeding at that time, in 1972, it was decided to stage the tournament in Melbourne each year because it attracted the biggest patronage of any Australian city. The tournament was played at the Kooyong Lawn Tennis Club from 1972 until the move to the new Melbourne Park complex in 1988, the new facilities at Melbourne Park were envisaged to meet the demands of a tournament that had outgrown Kooyongs capacity. The move to Melbourne Park was an success, with a 90 percent increase in attendance in 1988 on the previous year at Kooyong. Because of Australias geographic remoteness, very few foreign players entered this tournament in the early 20th century, in the 1920s, the trip by ship from Europe to Australia took about 45 days. The first tennis players who came by boats were the US Davis Cup players in November 1946, even inside the country, many players could not travel easily. When the tournament was held in Perth, no one from Victoria or New South Wales crossed by train, in Christchurch in 1906, of a small field of 10 players, only two Australians attended and the tournament was won by a New Zealander. The first tournaments of the Australasian Championships suffered from the competition of the other Australasian tournaments, before 1905, all Australian states and New Zealand had their own championships, the first organised in 1880 in Melbourne and called the Championship of the Colony of Victoria. In those years, the best two players – Australian Norman Brookes and New Zealander Anthony Wilding – almost did not play this tournament, Brookes came once and won in 1911, and Wilding entered and won the competition twice. Their meetings in the Victorian Championships helped to determine the best Australasian players, even when the Australasian Championships were held in Hastings, New Zealand, in 1912, Wilding, though three times Wimbledon champion, did not come back to his home country. It was a problem for all players of the era. Brookes went to Europe only three times, where he reached the Wimbledon Challenge Round once and then won Wimbledon twice
6.
French Open
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The French Open, often referred to as Roland Garros, is a major tennis tournament held over two weeks between late May and early June at the Stade Roland Garros in Paris, France. Roland Garros is the only Grand Slam event held on clay, French spelling rules dictate that in the name of a place or event named after a person, the elements of the name are joined together with a hyphen. Therefore, the names of the stadium and the tournament are hyphenated as Roland-Garros, in 1891 the Championnat de France, which is commonly referred to in English as the French Championships, was begun. It was only open to players who were members of French clubs. The first winner was a Briton—H, the first womens singles tournament, with four entries, was held in 1897. The mixed doubles event was added in 1902 and the doubles in 1907. This French club members only tournament was played until 1924, using four different venues during that period, Île de Puteaux, in Puteaux, the Racing Club de France, played on clay. For one year,1909, it was played at the Société Athlétique de la Villa Primrose in Bordeaux, Tennis Club de Paris, at Auteuil, Paris, played on clay. Another tournament, the World Hard Court Championships, is considered the precursor to the French Open as it was open to international competitors. Winners of this tournament included world no, 1s such as Tony Wilding from New Zealand and Bill Tilden from the US. In 1924 there was no World Hard Court Championships due to tennis being played at the Paris Olympic Games, in 1925, the French Championships became open to all amateurs internationally and was designated a major championship by the ILTF. It was held at the Stade Français in Saint-Cloud in 1925 and 1927, in 1926 the Racing Club de France hosted the event in Paris, site of the previous French club members only Championship, also on clay. In 1928, the Roland Garros stadium was opened and the event has held there ever since. After the Mousquetaires or Philadelphia Four won the Davis Cup on American soil in 1927, the Stade de France had offered the tennis authorities three hectares of land with the condition that the new stadium must be named after the World War I pilot, Roland Garros. The new Stade de Roland Garros, and its Center Court hosted that Davis Cup challenge, during World War II the tournament was held from 1941 through 1945 on the same grounds but these editions are not recognized by the French governing body, Fédération Française de Tennis. From 1946 through 1947, the French Championships were held after Wimbledon, in 1968, the French Championships became the first Grand Slam tournament to go open, allowing both amateurs and professionals to compete. Since 1981, new prizes have been presented, the Prix Orange, the Prix Citron, in another novelty, since 2006 the tournament has begun on a Sunday, featuring 12 singles matches played on the three main courts. Additionally, on the eve of the opening, the traditional Benny Berthet exhibition day takes place
7.
The Championships, Wimbledon
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The Championships, Wimbledon, commonly known simply as Wimbledon, is the oldest tennis tournament in the world, and is widely considered the most prestigious. It has been held at the All England Club in Wimbledon, London, Wimbledon is one of the four Grand Slam tennis tournaments, the others being the Australian Open, the French Open and the US Open. Since the Australian Open shifted to hardcourt in 1988, Wimbledon is the only major still played on grass. The tournament takes place two weeks in late June and early July, culminating with the Ladies and Gentlemens Singles Final. Five major, junior, and invitational events are each year. Wimbledon traditions include a dress code for competitors and Royal patronage. The tournament is notable for the absence of sponsor advertising around the courts. In 2009, Wimbledons Centre Court was fitted with a roof to lessen the loss of playing time due to rain. The All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club is a club founded on 23 July 1868. Its first ground was off Worple Road, Wimbledon, in 1876, lawn tennis, a game devised by Major Walter Clopton Wingfield a year or so earlier and originally given the name Sphairistikè, was added to the activities of the club. In spring 1877, the club was renamed The All England Croquet and Lawn Tennis Club, a new code of laws, replacing the code administered by the Marylebone Cricket Club, was drawn up for the event. Todays rules are similar except for such as the height of the net and posts. The inaugural 1877 Wimbledon Championship started on 9 July 1877 and the Gentlemens Singles was the event held. It was won by Spencer Gore, an old Harrovian rackets player, about 200 spectators paid one shilling each to watch the final. The lawns at the ground were arranged so that the court was in the middle with the others arranged around it. The name was retained when the Club moved in 1922 to the present site in Church Road, however, in 1980 four new courts were brought into commission on the north side of the ground, which meant the Centre Court was once more correctly defined. The opening of the new No.1 Court in 1997 emphasised the description, by 1882, activity at the club was almost exclusively confined to lawn tennis and that year the word croquet was dropped from the title. However, for reasons it was restored in 1899
8.
US Open (tennis)
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The United States Open Tennis Championships is a hardcourt tennis tournament. The tournament is the version of one of the oldest tennis championships in the world. The US Open is held annually, starting on the last Monday in August, the main tournament consists of five event championships, mens and womens singles, mens and womens doubles, and mixed doubles, with additional tournaments for senior, junior, and wheelchair players. Since 1978, the tournament has played on acrylic hard courts at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in Flushing Meadows–Corona Park, Queens. The US Open is owned and organized by the United States Tennis Association, net proceeds from ticket sales, sponsorships, and television deals are used to promote the development of tennis in the United States. The US Open is the only Grand Slam that employs tiebreakers in every set of a match, the first edition was won by Richard Sears, who went on to win seven consecutive singles titles. In the first years of the U. S. National Championship only men competed and this was followed by the introduction of the U. S. Womens National Doubles Championship in 1899 and the U. S. The womens tournament used a system from 1888 through 1918. This view was opposed by another group of players which included eight former national singles champions, the contentious issue was brought to a vote at the annual USNLTA meeting on February 5,1915 and with 128 votes in favor and 119 against it was decided to relocate. From 1921 through 1923, the tournament was played at the Germantown Cricket Club in Philadelphia and it returned to Forest Hills in 1924 following the completion of the newly constructed 14,000 seat concrete Forest Hills Stadium. Though regarded unofficially by many as a major championship beforehand, the tournament was officially designated as one of the tournaments by the ILTF commencing in 1924. At the 1922 U. S. National Championships the draw for the first time included seeded players in order to avoid leading players drawing against each other in the early rounds. Open era The open era began in 1968 when all five events were merged into the US Open, the 1968 combined tournament was open to professionals for the first time. That year,96 men and 63 women entered the event, from 1970 to 1974 the US Open used a best-of-nine point, sudden death tiebreaker before moving to the ITF best-of-twelve point system. In 1973 the US Open became the first Grand Slam tournament to award equal prize money to men and women with that years singles champions John Newcombe, another US Open innovation came in 1975 when floodlights enabled night play for the first time. In 1978 the tournament moved from the West Side Tennis Club, Forest Hills, Queens to the larger USTA National Tennis Center in Flushing Meadows, Queens, three miles to the north. In the process, the tournament switched the court surface from clay, jimmy Connors is the only individual to have won US Open singles titles on all three surfaces, while Chris Evert is the only woman to win on two surfaces. The US Open is the only Grand Slam tournament that has played every year since its inception
9.
Saitama, Saitama
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Saitama is the capital and the most populous city of Saitama Prefecture in Japan, situated in the south-east of the prefecture. Its area incorporates the cities of Urawa, Ōmiya, Yono. It is a city designated by government ordinance, being in the Greater Tokyo Area and lying 15 to 30 kilometres north of central Tokyo, many of its residents commute into Tokyo. As of 1 February 2016, the city had an population of 1,226,656. Its total area was 217.43 square kilometres, the city was founded on May 1,2001, and was designated on April 1,2003 as a government ordinance. For the histories of Urawa, Ōmiya and Yono before the merger, see, Urawa-ku, Saitama Ōmiya-ku, Saitama and Yono, Saitama, on April 1,2005, Saitama absorbed the city of Iwatsuki to its east, which became a new ward, Iwatsuki-ku. The name Saitama originally comes from the Sakitama district of what is now the city of Gyōda in the part of what is now known as Saitama Prefecture. Sakitama has an ancient history and is mentioned in the famous 8th century poetry anthology Manyōshū, the pronunciation has changed from Sakitama to Saitama over the years. With the merger of Urawa, Ōmiya, and Yono it was decided that a new name, the prefectural name Saitama was changed from kanji into hiragana, thus Saitama City was born. It is the prefectural capital in Japan whose name is always written in hiragana. However, Saitama written in hiragana actually finished in place in public polling to Saitama written in kanji. Despite this, government officials decided to name the new city Saitama in hiragana, in third place in the poll was Ōmiya. In fourth was Saitama, written with a kanji for sai which means colorful. The sai used in the name is a rare form of a common character that means cape or promontory. The city is located 20 to 30 km north of central Tokyo, the western portion of the city lies on the lowland created by the Arakawa River along with those created by small rivers such as the Moto-Arakawa River, Shiba River, and Ayase River. The rest of the area mostly resides on the Ōmiya Plateau lying in the north-south direction, dispersed in this region, major rivers flow southward, almost paralleling to one another. The city is one of commercial centers of the Greater Tokyo area and serves Saitama Prefecture, North Kanto. Saitama is also home to manufacturers, exporting automotive, food, optical, precision
10.
Thomaz Bellucci
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Thomaz Cocchiarali Bellucci is a Brazilian professional tennis player. He achieved a singles ranking of World No.21 in July 2010. Bellucci used a string of ATP Challenger Tour victories early in 2008 to break into the top 100 rankings of the ATP World Tour as a 20-year-old and he has won 4 ATP World Tour titles and reached the semi-finals of the 2011 Madrid Masters. Thomazs playing style is using the heavy topspin of his big forehand to control points and his two-handed backhand is much more compact than his forehand, and is flatter, which allows him to take balls earlier on his backhand wing and drive the ball for winners. His preferred court is clay, but shows the potential to get much better at faster courts as well. Bellucci reached as high as No.15 in the combined world rankings. 582, but began an ascent in June to finish the year at No.202. The 20-year-old Bellucci continued his rapid rise early in 2008, the first week of the year, ranked No. 202, he made it to the quarterfinals of a Challenger in São Paulo. The following week, he beat No.130 Rubén Ramírez Hidalgo and No.140 Eduardo Schwank en route to his first-ever Challenger title, in Santiago, Chile, the next week, he beat No.162 Dick Norman before losing in a Challenger second round match. In April, Bellucci began a string of Challenger match wins in singles play. First he won a minor Challenger in Florianópolis, Brazil, and those wins got him into the top 100 for the first time at No.100. In late May, he qualified into his first French Open, lost to 3-time defending champion, at Wimbledon, he achieved his first win in a Grand Slam event, defeating Igor Kunitsyn in four sets. Bellucci began the year reaching the Brasil Open final for the first time and he upset the former world No. 1,2003 French Open champion, and 2007 Brasil Open titlist Juan Carlos Ferrero in the Quarterfinals and it was his first ATP Tour final, after a string of Challengers. Ranked No.119 in the world at the time of his victory in Switzerland, in October, Bellucci reached his first hard-court ATP World Tour semifinal. He reached the last 4 at the Stockholm Open, losing to Olivier Rochus in three sets and he then followed his good form to win his second challenger title of the year, at the 2009 Copa Petrobras São Paulo in Brazil. He beat Nicolás Lapentti of Ecuador to win the sixth challenger of his career, and this result bumped Bellucci up to No.37 in the world, the first time that Thomaz was ranked inside the Top 40 in the world in singles
11.
Milos Raonic
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Milos Raonic is a Canadian professional tennis player. He reached a career-high Association of Tennis Professionals world No.3 singles ranking on November 21,2016, coupled with his first ATP World Tour title three weeks later, his world ranking rose from No.152 to No.37 in one month. He was awarded the 2011 ATP Newcomer of the Year, and has been ranked continuously inside the top 20 since August 2012. Raonic is the first player born in the 1990s to win an ATP World Tour title, to be ranked in the top 10 and he has eight ATP World Tour titles. Raonic is the most successful Canadian singles player in history and he became the highest-ranked Canadian male ever on February 21,2011, when he reached world No.37. His career-high world No.3 ranking is the highest by a Canadian man or woman and he is the first Canadian male in the Open Era to reach the Australian Open semifinals, the French Open quarterfinals, and the Wimbledon final. He has more ATP World Tour titles and finals appearances in the Open Era than all other Canadian men combined, Raonic is frequently described as having one of the best serves among his contemporaries. Statistically, Raonic is among the strongest servers in the Open Era, aided by his serve, he plays an all-court style with an emphasis on short points. Every one of his singles titles has won on hard courts. Raonic was born on December 27,1990, in Titograd, SFR Yugoslavia, prompted by the political unrest in the Balkans, and seeking more professional opportunities, his family moved to Canada in 1994 when he was three, settling in Brampton, Ontario. His parents are engineers, his father, Dušan, holds a Ph. D. in electrical engineering, while his mother, Vesna, has degrees in mechanical. Raonics uncle, Branimir Gvozdenović, is a politician in the Government of Montenegro, Raonic is fluent in Serbian and English. He moved to nearby Thornhill, Ontario soon after, and one or two years passed before he asked his parents if he could play again and his father sought out coach Casey Curtis at the Blackmore Tennis Club in Richmond Hill, Ontario. Curtis was at first reluctant to take on Raonic, but was convinced after Raonic demonstrated his commitment by working with his father, years later, Raonic said he chose tennis because of its individuality and felt could train more alone and on a ball machine with dad. Raonic and Curtis worked together twice a day, almost every day, provided that he complete his courses, Raonic was allowed to reduce his hours of attendance at Thornhill Elementary School so that he could practice more, which he did both before and after school. His parents and siblings supported his tennis, taking turns driving him to practice and tournaments, rather, they emphasized school throughout, insisting that he maintain academic excellence as a prerequisite to playing tennis. He attended Thornhill Secondary School, and accelerated his course load—achieving an 82 percent average—so that he could graduate a year early, Raonics four favourite sports teams are FC Barcelona, the Toronto Blue Jays, the Toronto Maple Leafs, and the Toronto Raptors. He played in the 2016 NBA All-Star Celebrity Game held in Toronto and he worked for Rogers Sportsnet as an analyst while recovering from injury for their broadcast of the 2011 Canadian Open
12.
Fernando Verdasco
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Fernando Verdasco Carmona is a Spanish professional tennis player. His career-high singles ranking is world No, Verdasco started playing tennis at four years of age and had a full-time coach when he was eight. As of 2009, Verdasco has been working in Las Vegas with Andre Agassi and his team, including Darren Cahill and Gil Reyes. Verdasco has aided Spain in winning three Davis Cup titles, winning the match in both 2008 and 2009, he was part of the winning team in 2011 as well. His best performance in a Grand Slam was making the semifinals of the 2009 Australian Open, the match itself has been considered one of the greatest Grand Slam semifinals of all time. He turned professional in 2002, finishing as world No.464,2002 was a good year for him, as he won his first Futures category title in Spain F1 and was runner-up in Spain F3. He played his pond career challenger in Segovia, where he reached the final after beating Belarusian Vladimir Voltchkov in the semifinals and he then reached two additional Challenger semifinals in Kiev and in Eckental, finishing the year in the top 200 at no.173. 2002 also finished strongly off the court, as Fernando finished runner-up in a closely contested Best Abs in Castilla La Mancha contest, in 2003, Verdasco played his first Masters Series tournament. He joined the draw as a qualifier, and after defeating Karol Kučera and Max Mirnyi. Then Verdasco played in Cincinnati, where he lost to Andy Roddick in straight sets and he reached the third round at the US Open, where he lost to Thai Paradorn Srichaphan, after defeating countryman Tommy Robredo in the first round and Italian Davide Sanguinetti in the second round. After finishing 2003 as No.109 in the world, he had a breakthrough in 2004 when he won his first ATP title in Valencia and he defeated defending champion Juan Carlos Ferrero in the semifinals and Albert Montañés in the final. He also reached the final in Acapulco, losing to Carlos Moyà, and he reached the third round in two Masters Series tournaments, the Hamburg Masters and the Madrid Masters. He reached the quarterfinals in Stockholm and the semifinals in Kitzbühel, in 2005, he defeated Andy Roddick twice, in Miami and in Rome. He also reached the quarterfinals in Valencia, Rome, and New Haven, the semifinals of Saint Petersburg, and was finalist in Kitzbühel, where he lost to Argentine Gastón Gaudio. Verdasco reached his first Grand Slam fourth round at the U. S. Open and his year-end ranking improved slightly to no.32 in the world. Verdasco then lost to Czech Radek Štěpánek in five sets, at the US Open, Fernando reached the third round, but lost to eventual runner-up Andy Roddick in five sets. In previous rounds, Fernando defeated Fabrice Santoro in four sets, Fernando then lost in the quarterfinals of Palermo to Rubén Ramírez Hidalgo, and then he lost to Ramírez Hidalgo again the following week in the first round at Metz. Verdasco did not win a match the rest of year, Verdasco finished the year ranked no.35
Japan
Malek Jaziri
Bradley Klahn
Pablo Carreño Busta
Filippo Volandri
John Millman
Casper Ruud
Chung Hyeon
Leonardo Mayer
Alexander Rumyantsev
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