Daniel Nestor

Biography

Daniel Nestor made history at Sydney 2000 when he teamed with Sébastien Lareau to win the men’s doubles gold medal and become Canada’s first ever Olympic medallists in tennis. In a surprise upset, they defeated the home favourite “Woodies”, Australians Todd Woodbridge and Mark Woodforde, the defending champions and 11-time Grand Slam champions in four sets.

Both Canadians had left successful international partnerships earlier in the year with the goal of winning Olympic gold. In Nestor’s case, that man was Mark Knowles of the Bahamas, with whom he would go on to win the first three of his eight career Grand Slam doubles titles. Nestor would win three more Grand Slam titles with Serbian Nenad Zimonjic, including back-to-back Wimbledon titles in 2008 and 2009, before claiming back-to-back French Open titles with Belarus’ Max Mirnyi in 2011 and 2012. Nestor was the third men’s doubles player to complete the career Golden Slam.

Nestor has reached nine other Grand Slam finals, including the 2016 Australian Open with Czech Radek Stepanek. He put his name into the record books in January 2016 when he became the first player to record 1000 ATP doubles match wins. As of mid-June 2016, he had 88 career doubles titles, including 40 with Knowles and 27 with Zimonjic. He had also ended three seasons (2002, 2004, 2008) ranked as the world’s number one doubles team. In 2011 Nestor became the first player to win all nine ATP Masters 1000 events in his career.

Nestor first came to prominence as a 19-year-old during a 1992 Davis Cup tie against Sweden when he defeated then-world number one Stefan Edberg in a singles match. He has played in six Olympic doubles tournaments with four different partners: Grant Connell at Atlanta 1996; Lareau at Sydney 2000; Frédéric Niemeyer at Athens 2004 and Beijing 2008; and Vasek Pospisil at London 2012 and Rio 2016. They finished fourth at the latter after dropping the bronze medal match to Americans Jack Sock and Steve Johnson.

Getting to know…

Getting into the Sport: Started playing tennis at age 11… Outside Interests: Enjoys reading and following other sports, especially the NFL and Pittsburgh Steelers… Supports Sick Kids Hospital in Toronto… Odds and Ends: Inspired by Jimmy Connors’ competitiveness and longevity in tennis… Received a star on Canada’s Walk of Fame in 2011… Received honourary degree from York University in 2012… Favourite motto: Success comes before work only in the dictionary…