Damir Džumhur ( ; born 20 May 1992) is a Bosnian professional tennis player. His career-best singles ATP ranking of World No. 23, achieved on 2 July 2018, makes him the highest-ranked tennis player from Bosnia and Herzegovina. He is currently Bosnia and Herzegovina's No. 1 player.
By winning the 2017 St. Petersburg Open singles tournament, Džumhur became the first player competing under the Bosnia and Herzegovina flag to claim an ATP Tour title. He added also a triumph at the 2017 Kremlin Cup and became the first player in tennis history to win both events played on Russian soil in the same season. Džumhur is also the first male player to represent Bosnia and Herzegovina in the main draw of any Grand Slam.
He is a member of the Bosnia and Herzegovina Davis Cup team, and he competed at the 2016 Summer Olympics, being selected as the first male tennis player from his country to do so.
As a junior, he was ranked world No. 3 and he was a bronze medallist at the 2010 Youth Olympic Games.
Early and personal life Džumhur was born on 20 May 1992 in Sarajevo as a first child to Nerfid and Žaneta Džumhur. His birth in a maternity hospital located near the Zetra Olympic Hall came shortly after the outbreak of the Bosnian War. The arena was destroyed at the time, but it was the same place where Damir would start practising tennis.
As a child, Džumhur practised skiing and football in addition to tennis. Growing up, he admired Patrick Rafter and Roger Federer, and he is also a keen football fan and supports the Bosnian team FK Željezničar.
As a teenager, Džumhur acted in movies. When he was 14, he was a background actor in the Golden Bear awarded film Grbavica by Jasmila Žbanić. He also got his first significant role in the German film (2007) by Rudolf Schweiger, where he played the role of the sharpshooter Duncan.
In addition to his native Bosnian, Džumhur speaks English. He studied political science at the Faculty of Political Sciences at the University of Sarajevo.
Džumhur was in a relationship with Croatian model and former Big Brother contestant Barbara Šegetin, with whom he has a son named Luka.
Junior career
From the beginning, Džumhur has been coached by his father Nerfid, who has been running a tennis school since 1994. He started playing tennis at the age of five and began practising professionally in 1999 after the renovated Zetra Olympic Hall opened.
In his early years, he participated in local events, mainly in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia and Serbia and Montenegro. His first major success came in 2004 when he won the unofficial U–12 European Championships in Rome. That year, he played a total of nine tournaments, winning all of them and dropping only four sets in the process.
Before turning 18, Džumhur competed in various tournaments held across the continent and organized by Tennis Europe. He finished the 2005 and 2006 seasons ranked 87th and 25th respectively in Europe's under-14 boys' singles rankings, and in the years 2007 and 2008, he finished as the 13th- and 17th-ranked player in the under-16 category.
In 2008, Džumhur started competing in official ITF junior tournaments in the under-18 category. In that year, he played six tournaments in total, winning one and reaching the final of another. He closed his first season at this level with 17 wins and 5 losses, and was ranked 299th in the world for juniors. The following season Džumhur participated in 20 such events, winning two titles, and with a 45–17 win–loss record, he finished ranked 35th. However, he was not ranked by ITF in those two years due to insufficient appearances in premier events.
In 2010, Džumhur played in 12 tournaments, four of which he claimed. That includes the triumph in the U–18 European Championships in Klosters, after beating Andrés Artuñedo Martínavarro in straight sets in the final. In August 2010, by defeating Victor Baluda, Džumhur won the bronze medal in singles event at the 2010 Summer Youth Olympics in Singapore, where he was also a country representative during the Opening Ceremony as a flag bearer for Bosnia and Herzegovina. That year he appeared in his only three junior Grand Slam events, where he achieved a second round finish at the Roland Garros, a quarterfinal finish at the Wimbledon Championships and a third round finish at the US Open in singles competitions and also a Quarterfinal, second round and Quarterfinal finish in doubles, respectively. In July 2010 Džumhur was placed third on the ITF world rankings, and he finished this year on 4th place with 40 singles wins and 8 losses.
In 2010, he played his first two matches in Davis Cup for Bosnia and Herzegovina, winning both of them in matches against Estonia and Portugal.
Junior Grand Slam results – Singles:
Australian Open: – (-) French Open: 2R (2010) Wimbledon: QF (2010) US Open: 3R (2010)
Junior Grand Slam results – Doubles:
Australian Open: – (-) French Open: QF (2010) Wimbledon: 2R (2010) US Open: QF (2010)
Professional career 2011: Turned pro
Džumhur turned professional in 2011, making his debut at the ATP World Tour in Zagreb during qualifying for the 2011 PBZ Zagreb Indoors.
He ended his first fully professional season ranked World No. 339.
2012–2013: First pro years, top 200 debut He spent his first years as a pro mainly on the ATP Challenger Tour and in ITF Men's Circuit tournaments. He won twelve singles and eight doubles Futures titles overall, as well as reaching the finals twice in Challenger events – the 2013 Košice Open and 2013 Poznań Open, losing in three sets on both occasions to Mikhail Kukushkin and Andreas Haider-Maurer respectively. In that period Džumhur took part in four Davis Cup ties involving Bosnia and Herzegovina, playing in total of eight rubbers, winning in two singles and one doubles matches.
He ended the 2012 season inside the Top 250.
In 2013, Džumhur climbed into the top 200 in the world singles rankings, first achieved on 19 August 2013, and eventually he finished the year at World No. 187.
2014: Closing in on Top 100 In January 2014, Džumhur became the first male Bosnian representative to play in the main draw of a Grand Slam, having reached the third round of the 2014 Australian Open, where he eventually lost to 7th seed Tomáš Berdych. On the way to this stage, Džumhur defeated Dustin Brown, Niels Desein, Ruben Bemelmans in qualifying competition, before winning against Jan Hájek, and 32nd seeded Ivan Dodig. He received praise from Berdych and Novak Djokovic after the tournament.
Džumhur then played for his country in Davis Cup first round match against Greece, where he lost in four sets to Markos Kalovelonis, ranked No. 691 at the time. However, in his next match he came back from two sets down and won against Alexandros Jakupovic, sealing a 3–1 victory for Bosnia and Herzegovina over Greece. This was then followed by a series of unsuccessful appearances in a combination of World Tour and Challenger Tour events across Europe and the United States, where Džumhur made his debut in ATP World Tour Masters 1000 cycle, having played in the qualifying of the Indian Wells Masters and the Miami Masters, where he won his sole eight points during that period. He finished his first hard-court part of the season by helping his country beat Finland in the 2014 Davis Cup Group II second round.
Džumhur opened his clay campaign by winning 2014 Mersin Cup – his first Challenger tournament in his career. On the way to this triumph, he defeated Guillaume Rufin, Egor Gerasimov, Thomas Fabbiano and Matteo Viola in straight sets. That was followed by a win over Pere Riba in the final match, which allowed him to achieve career-high singles ranking. Džumhur became only the second player (after Amer Delić), who has ever won a Challenger tournament under the Bosnian flag. In May that year, at 2014 Roland Garros, he qualified for a second straight Grand Slam tournament, where he lost in the first round to 26th seed Feliciano López. Straight after, he went on to win his second Challenger title, at 2014 BRD Arad Challenger, in Romania, by beating Pere Riba again in the final which moved him into the top 110 in th ATP rankings.
Later in June, Džumhur took part in his only matches of the season that were played on grass, losing both of them in three sets – to Ante Pavić in singles and to Gero Kretschmer and Alexander Satschko in doubles, during the 2014 Wimbledon Championships qualifying event.
During his clay-court season, Džumhur won in Italy his third title of the season at 2014 San Benedetto Tennis Cup, by beating Andreas Haider-Maurer in the final in straight sets. That gave him his first ever direct entry into the main draw of a Grand Slam tournament – the 2014 US Open. He was defeated in the first round by David Ferrer, who was ranked No. 5 at that time, losing in four sets. A week before the start of the US Open, Džumhur qualified for the first time in his career to an ATP World Tour event, which was the 2014 Winston-Salem Open, played on hardcourt, where he lost in two sets to Adrian Mannarino.
His last Davis Cup appearance of the season ended in a three-set defeat to Ričardas Berankis, which sealed victory for Lithuania and left Bosnia and Herzegovina in Group II of the Europe/Africa Zone.
In Autumn 2014 Džumhur was unsuccessful in his hardcourt appearances, however he twice achieved his career-high ranking of 101. On both occasions he was one point short of entering the ATP top 100, and would've become the first male Bosnian player to be ranked there. He eventually finished that season on 109th place, and thus did not achieve his goal, set in August, of finishing the year in the top 100, and did not gain direct entry into the first Grand Slam tournament of the new season – the 2015 Australian Open, but he fulfilled his initial wish of being ranked in the top 150 at the end of the year.
2015: Breakthrough on the ATP Tour Džumhur began the new season in India, where he was unsuccessful in his bid to qualify for the main draw of the 2015 Aircel Chennai Open, losing to Luca Vanni in the final qualifying round. For the first time in his career, he also took part in the main doubles draw of an ATP World Tour level tournament, playing alongside Aljaž Bedene. Later in January he failed to qualify for the Australian Open, after a three set loss to Tim Pütz in the second qualifying round, while being the top seed in the draw. After the Australian Open, Džumhur managed to win his first career singles match at ATP World Tour level at the 2015 PBZ Zagreb Indoors, against Michael Berrer, in three sets, after saving two match points, before falling to third seed Guillermo García López in two sets. It was also the first ATP 250 series tournament in Džumhur's career where he had direct entry.