Carlos Moyá

In November 1995, at the age of 19, Moyá won his first tournament at the top-level in Buenos Aires, defeating Félix Mantilla in the final. In May 1996, Moyá defeated the clay-court champion Thomas Muster, in the semifinals of the tournament in Munich, ending Muster's streak of winning 38 matches in a row on clay-courts. It was the fourth time in four weeks that Moyá had played a match against Muster. In the final of Munich, Sláva Doseděl defeated Moyá.

In 1997, Moyá reached his first Grand Slam final at the Australian Open, defeating defending champion Boris Becker in the first round of the tournament, Jonas Björkman in the fourth round, and world No. 3 Michael Chang in the semifinals, in straight sets, before losing in straight sets to Pete Sampras. Before the US Open, he won brilliantly in Long Island. His opponent in the final was the future winner of US Open a few days later, the Australian Patrick Rafter. Moyá lost due to an injury in the first round of the US Open.

In 1998, Moyá won the French Open. He defeated Sébastien Grosjean, Pepe Imaz, Andrew Ilie and Jens Knippschild before beating the tournament favourite, Marcelo Ríos in the quarterfinal. He then defeated Félix Mantilla Botella in the semifinal and fellow-Spaniard Álex Corretja in the final with a straight-sets win. He also won his first Tennis Masters Series tournament that year at Monte Carlo. He reached the semifinals of the US Open, losing to Mark Philippoussis. He concluded the year by finishing runner-up at the ATP World Championships (now known as the ATP World Tour Finals), where he lost in a five-set final to Corretja, having won the first two sets.

In March 1999, after finishing runner-up at Indian Wells, Moyá reached the world No. 1 singles ranking, the first Spanish player in history to achieve this feat. He held the top spot for two weeks. Later that year, he entered the French Open as defending champion and lost in the fourth round to eventual winner Andre Agassi. At the US Open, Moyá withdrew in the second round with a back injury and only played in two tournaments for the rest of the year.

Despite being hampered with a stress fracture in his lower back from the 1999 US Open through the early part of 2000, Moyá still finished in the top 50 in the world for the fifth straight year. He reached the fourth round of the US Open, where he held a match point in the fourth set, but eventually lost to Todd Martin in five sets, 7–6, 7–6, 1–6, 6–7, 2–6. Moyá's best result for the rest of 2000 was winning at the Portugal Open final over his countryman Francisco Clavet.

In 2001, Moyá won the title at Umag. He also finished runner-up at Barcelona, where he lost in a four-hour marathon final to countryman Juan Carlos Ferrero.

2002 saw Moyá win four titles from six finals. He captured his second career Tennis Masters Series title, and the biggest hard-court title of his career, at Cincinnati, where he defeated world No. 1, Lleyton Hewitt, in the final.

Moyá captured three clay-court titles in 2003. He also helped Spain reach the final of the Davis Cup, compiling a 6–0 singles record. In the semifinals, he won the deciding rubber against Gastón Gaudio as Spain beat Argentina, 3–2. He beat Mark Philippoussis on grass in the final. But that proved to be Spain's only point, as they lost the final 1–4 to Australia.

In 2004, Moyá helped Spain go one better and win the Davis Cup. In the final, he won two critical singles rubbers against Andy Roddick and Mardy Fish, as Spain beat the United States 3–2. The year also saw Moyà capture his third career Masters Series title at Rome, where he defeated David Nalbandian in the final. He was the only player on the tour to win at least 20 matches on both clay courts and hardcourts that year.

In July 2004, Moyá's kind-hearted gesture to hit with ball boy Sandeep Ponniah at the 2004 Tennis Masters Series Toronto event captured audiences during an injury timeout against opponent Nicolas Kiefer of Germany. To the crowd's surprise, Ponniah shuffled Moyá across the baseline and received an ovation for an overhead smash on a Moyá lob.

Moyá won his 18th career title in January 2005 at Chennai. He donated his prize money for the win to the 2004 Indian Ocean Earthquake and Tsunami victims.

In January 2007, Moyá was the runner-up at the Sydney International, losing to defending champion James Blake.

In May 2007, at the Hamburg Masters, he defeated Mardy Fish, world No. 12 Tomáš Berdych, world No. 9 Blake, and world No. 6 Novak Djokovic, a run which saw him reach his first Masters semifinal since 2004 Indian Wells, where he lost to Roger Federer.

Moyá lost against Rafael Nadal in straight sets in the quarterfinals of the 2007 French Open.

During Wimbledon, Moyá lost in the first round to Tim Henman in a five-set thriller, the fifth set stretching to 24 games (Henman won 13–11). Despite the loss, Moyá had no points to defend (he had not played a grass-court match in a few years), resulting in his moving to world No. 20, his first time inside the top 20 since 13 June 2005.

In July 2007, Moyá won the Croatia Open in Umag, defeating Andrei Pavel. The win brought him to world No. 18 in the rankings, his highest rank since 23 May 2005, when he was world No. 15. In 2007 at Cincinnati, he reached the quarter-finals, where he lost to Lleyton Hewitt.

In 2008 at the Cincinnati Masters, Moyá defeated Nikolay Davydenko, the match being played over the course of two days because of rain. Hours after his match with Davydenko, Moyá beat Igor Andreev.

Moyá made a slow start in 2009. He failed to progress beyond the second round of his first four tournaments, including a first-round loss at the Australian Open. In March 2009, he announced that he would have an indefinite hiatus from tennis to recover from injured tendons and ischium in his hip.^[2] He returned to professional tennis in January 2010, losing against Janko Tipsarević in the first round of the Chennai Open, then losing in the first round of the 2010 Australian Open to Illya Marchenko.

On 17 November 2010, he announced his retirement from tennis owing to a long-standing foot injury from which he failed to recover.^[3] He received a special ceremony at the O2 Arena in London during the 2010 ATP World Tour Finals, with all top eight singles and doubles players attending. Other players who attended included Fernando Verdasco, Mikhail Youzhny, Àlex Corretja, Jonas Björkman, and Thomas Johansson.

He has won ATP Tour singles titles in eleven countries: Argentina, Croatia, France, Italy, India, Mexico, Monaco, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, and the United States.

2004 – Davis Cup winner with Spain

• He has a 44–60 record against players who were, at the time the match was played, ranked in the top 10.

#	Player	Rank	Event	Surface	Rd	Score	Moyá Rank
1996
1.	Goran Ivanišević	6	Munich, Germany	Clay	QF	6–3, 6–4	40
2.	Thomas Muster	2	Munich, Germany	Clay	SF	6–3, 6–3	40
3.	Boris Becker	3	Paris, France	Carpet (i)	2R	6–3, 5–7, 6–4	24
1997
4.	Wayne Ferreira	10	Sydney, Australia	Hard	1R	2–6, 6–0, 6–3	28
5.	Boris Becker	6	Australian Open, Melbourne	Hard	1R	5–7, 7–6(7–4), 2–6, 6–1, 6–4	25
6.	Michael Chang	2	Australian Open, Melbourne	Hard	SF	7–5, 6–2, 6–4	25
7.	Richard Krajicek	5	Monte Carlo, Monaco	Clay	QF	1–6, 6–2, 6–4	8
8.	Pete Sampras	1	ATP Tour World Championships, Hanover, Germany	Hard (i)	RR	6–3, 6–7(4–7), 6–2	7
9.	Thomas Muster	9	ATP Tour World Championships, Hanover, Germany	Hard (i)	RR	6–2, 6–3	7
1998
10.	Yevgeny Kafelnikov	6	Monte Carlo, Monaco	Clay	3R	6–2, 6–3	18
11.	Àlex Corretja	8	Monte Carlo, Monaco	Clay	QF	6–3, 6–2	18
12.	Marcelo Ríos	3	French Open, Paris	Clay	QF	6–1, 2–6, 6–2, 6–4	12
13.	Àlex Corretja	7	US Open, New York	Hard	4R	7–6(7–4), 7–5, 6–3	10
14.	Karol Kučera	7	ATP Tour World Championships, Hanover, Germany	Hard (i)	RR	6–7(5–7), 7–5, 6–3	5
15.	Yevgeny Kafelnikov	10	ATP Tour World Championships, Hanover, Germany	Hard (i)	RR	7–5, 7–5	5
16.	Tim Henman	9	ATP Tour World Championships, Hanover, Germany	Hard (i)	SF	6–4, 3–6, 7–5	5
1999
17.	Tim Henman	7	World Team Cup, Düsseldorf, Germany	Clay	RR	7–5, 3–6, 7–6(7–2)	4
2000
18.	Magnus Norman	5	Estoril, Portugal	Clay	2R	6–1, 6–3	50
19.	Yevgeny Kafelnikov	3	Barcelona, Spain	Clay	2R	6–2, 7–6(7–4)	39
20.	Àlex Corretja	8	Long Island, United States	Hard	2R	7–5, 1–1, ret.	59
21.	Àlex Corretja	8	US Open, New York	Hard	3R	7–6(7–4), 6–3, 4–6, 6–4	55
2001
22.	Lleyton Hewitt	7	Australian Open, Melbourne	Hard	3R	4–6, 6–1, 5–7, 6–2, 7–5	42
2002
23.	Tommy Haas	6	Scottsdale, United States	Hard	1R	6–2, 6–7(2–7), 6–3	25
24.	Lleyton Hewitt	1	Monte Carlo, Monaco	Clay	1R	6–4, 6–3	26
25.	Marat Safin	6	Monte Carlo, Monaco	Clay	QF	6–1, 2–6, 7–6(7–4)	26
26.	Tim Henman	5	Monte Carlo, Monaco	Clay	SF	6–4, 5–7, 6–3	26
27.	Lleyton Hewitt	1	Rome, Italy	Clay	2R	6–3, 6–2	25
28.	Juan Carlos Ferrero	8	Cincinnati, United States	Hard	SF	6–3, 6–4	17
29.	Lleyton Hewitt	1	Cincinnati, United States	Hard	F	7–5, 7–6(7–5)	17
30.	Sébastien Grosjean	4	Paris, France	Carpet (i)	3R	3–6, 7–6(12–10), 6–1	10
31.	Andre Agassi	2	Paris, France	Carpet (i)	QF	6–4, 6–4	10
32.	Marat Safin	3	Tennis Masters Cup, Shanghai, China	Hard (i)	RR	6–4, 7–5	5
33.	Lleyton Hewitt	1	Tennis Masters Cup, Shanghai, China	Hard (i)	RR	6–4, 7–5	5
2003
34.	Marat Safin	8	Barcelona, Spain	Clay	F	5–7, 6–2, 6–2, 3–0, ret.	4
35.	Rainer Schüttler	6	Tennis Masters Cup, Houston, United States	Hard	RR	7–5, 6–4	7
36.	Mark Philippoussis	9	Davis Cup, Melbourne, Australia	Grass	RR	6–4, 6–4, 4–6, 7–6(7–4)	7
2004
37.	David Nalbandian	8	Rome, Italy	Clay	F	6–3, 6–3, 6–1	9
38.	Gastón Gaudio	10	Tennis Masters Cup, Houston, United States	Hard	RR	6–3, 6–4	5
39.	Andy Roddick	2	Davis Cup, Seville, Spain	Clay (i)	RR	6–2, 7–6(7–1), 7–6(7–5)	5
2006
40.	Rafael Nadal	2	Miami, United States	Hard	2R	2–6, 6–1, 6–1	35
2007
41.	James Blake	9	Hamburg, Germany	Clay	3R	1–6, 6–3, 6–3	36
42.	Novak Djokovic	6	Hamburg, Germany	Clay	QF	7–6(7–4), 4–6, 7–5	36
43.	Novak Djokovic	3	Cincinnati, United States	Hard	2R	6–4, 6–1	19
2008
44.	Nikolay Davydenko	5	Cincinnati, United States	Hard	2R	7–6(10–8), 4–6, 6–2	41

In July 2011, Moyá married actress Carolina Cerezuela. They have two daughters and a son.^[4]

• List of Grand Slam men's singles champions

• Carlos Moya on Twitter (in Spanish)
• Carlos Moyá at the Association of Tennis Professionals  
• Carlos Moyá at the International Tennis Federation  
• Carlos Moyá at the Davis Cup  
• bio – file interview with Carlos Moya
• Moya Recent Match Results
• Moya World Ranking History

Sporting positions
Preceded by   Pete Sampras	World No. 1 15 March 1999 – 28 March 1999 (2 weeks)	Succeeded by   Pete Sampras
Preceded by   Thomas Enqvist	ATP Champions Tour Year-End No.1 2011, 2012	Succeeded by Incumbent