Ronald Agénor

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Ronald Agénor

Country (sports)	Haiti  United States
Residence	Beverly Hills, California, USA
Born	(1964-11-13) November 13, 1964 (age 56) Rabat, Morocco
Height	1.80 m (5 ft 11 in)
Turned pro	1983
Retired	2002 (Occasionally active from 2006 to 2012)
Plays	Right-handed (one-handed backhand)
Prize money	$2,014,601
Singles
Career record	221–257
Career titles	3
Highest ranking	No. 22 (May 8, 1989)
Grand Slam Singles results
Australian Open	2R (1990)
French Open	QF (1989)
Wimbledon	2R (1989, 1993)
US Open	4R (1988)
Other tournaments
Olympic Games	1R (1984DE, 1988, 1996)
Doubles
Career record	26–58
Career titles	0
Highest ranking	No. 111 (July 14, 1986)

Ronald Jean-Martin Agénor (born November 13, 1964) is a former professional tennis player who represented Haiti during his playing career. He is the only Haitian to have ever earned a Top 25 world ranking in singles, reaching a highest singles ranking of world No. 22 in May 1989. During his career he won three ATP tour singles titles.

Early life and junior tennis[]

Ronal^{[citation needed]} Agénor was born on November 13, 1964 in Rabat, Morocco, the son of Frédéric Agénor, a former Haitian Diplomat at the United Nations and Minister of Agriculture of Haiti.^[1] He is the youngest of a family of six children and learned how to play tennis in Lubumbashi, Zaire (current Congo) in 1974 and discovered competitive tennis in Bordeaux, France in 1978 under the wing of his brother, Lionel.^[2] He trained with the French Tennis Federation training program during one year at the Ligue de Guyenne in Bordeaux and was ranked No. 8 junior player in the world in 1982.^[3]

Junior Grand Slam results - Singles:

Australian Open: A (-)
French Open: 3R (1982)
Wimbledon: 1R (1981, 1982)
US Open: 2R (1982)

Pro tennis career[]

Agénor joined the professional tennis circuit in 1983. In 1989 He reached the quarterfinals of the French Open where he was defeated by eventual-champion Michael Chang in four sets, and won his first top-level singles title at Athens. In 1990, Agénor won two further tour singles titles at Berlin and Genoa.

He competed in three Summer Olympic Games, in 1984 (a demonstration event), 1988 and 1996.^[4]

In 1999, Agénor finished the year ranked World No. 98 and became the first player aged over 35 to finish in the top-100 since Jimmy Connors in 1992.

Agénor competed in his penultimate ATP-sanctioned tour event in July 2006 at the Aptos Futures event after a four-year layoff from tour tennis, losing 3–6, 4–6 in the first round.

In a career spanning 19 years, he reached the quarter finals at the French Open in 1989 by beating Carl Limberger, Tim Mayotte, Claudio Pistolesi and Sergi Bruguera before losing to champion Michael Chang. He also got to the fourth round of both the US Open and French Open in 1988. He represented Haiti in the Olympics in Los Angeles in 1984, in Seoul in 1988, and in Atlanta in 1996 and won 3 ATP Tour World titles in Athens, Genoa, and Berlin. At the French Open in 1994, he defeated David Prinosil, 14/12 in the fifth set and broke the previous record of the longest match in the number of games in the history of the French Open since the open era previously held by Emilio Sanchez. In 1987, his final at the Swiss Indoors against Yannick Noah from France, was the first ATP World Tour tennis final between two players of color in men's professional tennis history. After a break from the pro circuit, Agénor made a comeback in 1999 becoming, at 35 years of age, the oldest player to reach top 100 (ATP ranked #88) in the world since Jimmy Connors did it in 1991. In 2000, he represented and led the Lido Luzern Tennis Club in Switzerland to its first Swiss National title in 100 years. In 2001, at 37 years of age, he finished the year ATP ranked #186 appearing in a final against David Nalbandian from Argentina.

Agénor retired from professional tennis in 2002 and opened the Ronald Agenor Tennis Academy in Los Angeles, California.

In 2009, he entered qualifying for the Genova Challenger in singles, but retired in the first round.^[5]

In 2012, Agénor entered the doubles draw of Futures events in Casablanca,^[6] Innisbrook,^[7] and Edwardsville.^[8] Partnering Takanyi Garanganga, he came up short in his final match.

Career finals[]

Singles (3 titles, 5 runner-ups)[]

Result	W–L	Date	Tournament	Surface	Opponent	Score
Loss	0–1	Jul 1987	Gstaad, Switzerland	Clay	Emilio Sánchez	2–6, 3–6, 6–7
Loss	0–2	Jul 1987	Bordeaux, France	Clay	Emilio Sánchez	7–5, 4–6, 4–6
Loss	0–3	Oct 1987	Basel, Switzerland	Hard (i)	Yannick Noah	6–7, 4–6, 4–6
Loss	0–4	Jul 1988	Bordeaux, France	Clay	Thomas Muster	3–6, 3–6
Win	1–4	Apr 1989	Athens Open, Greece	Clay	Kent Carlsson	6–3, 6–4
Win	2–4	Jun 1990	Genoa, Italy	Clay	Tarik Benhabiles	3–6, 6–4, 6–3
Win	3–4	Oct 1990	Berlin, Germany	Carpet (i)	Alexander Volkov	4–6, 6–4, 7–6
Loss	3–5	Jul 1993	Båstad, Sweden	Clay	Horst Skoff	5–7, 6–1, 0–6

Doubles (2 runner-ups)[]

Result	W/L	Date	Tournament	Surface	Partner	Opponents	Score
Loss	0–1	Jul 1986	ATP Bordeaux, France	Clay	Mansour Bahrami	Jordi Arrese David de Miguel	5–7, 4–6
Loss	0–2	Jan 1995	Jakarta Open, Indonesia	Clay	Shuzo Matsuoka	David Adams Andrei Olhovskiy	5–7, 3–6

After tennis[]

Agénor has also recorded music as a rock musician [1].

Agenor was once Honorary Consul of Haiti in Bordeaux, France (1989) and speaks several languages fluently. He is a member of the 'Champions for Peace' club,^[9] a group of high level sportsmen personally committed to the peace through sport movement, which is part of Peace and Sport, an organization under the patronage of Prince Albert II of Monaco.^[10] In 1989, he was Honorary Consul of Haiti in Bordeaux, France. In 2006, the city of , in wine country region of Bordeaux in France, named its newly built tennis facility after Ronald "Salle Ronald Agénor". In 2018, he was inducted into the Black Tennis Hall of Fame in a ceremony held at George Washington University, in Washington DC,^[11][12] and the tennis court “Court Ronald Agénor” was inaugurated in the Bordeaux Wine region, at Sainte Terre Tennis Club, France.

References[]

External links[]

• Official website
• Ronald Agénor at the Association of Tennis Professionals
• Ronald Agénor at the International Tennis Federation
• Ronald Agénor at the Davis Cup