Goodbye Gonzalez!

A while ago Fernando Gonzalez announced his retirement from tennis, and after losing out to Nicolas Mahut at the Sony Ericsson Open, 7-5 4-6 7-6 (7/3), the 31-year-old Chilean ended his career on a double fault!

In his career he has reached at least the quarter-finals of every Grand Slam tournament, he played his first major final at the 2007 Australian Open, losing to top-ranked Roger Federer. 

He is the fourth male tennis player in history to have won each Olympic medal (gold in doubles and bronze in singles at Athens 2004, and silver in singles at Beijing 2008). 

Throughout his career, he has defeated many former no. 1 players, including Lleyton Hewitt, Andre Agassi, Roger Federer (all while they held the top spot), Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal, Andy Roddick, Juan Carlos Ferrero, Carlos Moyà, Gustavo Kuerten, Marat Safin, and Pete Sampras. 

 González qualified twice for the year-end Masters Cup event and was runner-up at two Masters Series tournaments.

 He is arguably Chile's best tennis player of the 2000s. His highest ranking was achieved in 2007 when he reached No.5, he has won a total of 11 career titles in the singles and 3 in the doubles!

 This tribute video was shown on after his last match, all the top players speak about the respect they have for him and in particular his fantastic forehand ;).

In Spanish he was known as  El Bombardero de La Reina ("The La Reina Bomber") and Mano de Piedra ("Stone Hand"), because of his amazing forehand but the English-language media settled for "Gonzo".

So Thank you Fernando, and best wishes for the future, we hope to see you involved in somethig tennis related soon!