Gastón Norberto Gaudio (Spanish pronunciation: [ɡasˈtoŋ ˈɡawðjo]; born 9 December 1978) is an Argentine former professional tennis player. He was ranked as high as world No. 5 in men's singles by the Association of Tennis Professionals, achieved in April 2005. Gaudio won eight ATP Tour-level singles titles, including a major at the 2004 French Open, coming from two sets down in the final to defeat compatriot Guillermo Coria.
Gaudio learned the game at the Temperley Lawn Tennis Club, and his first coach was Roberto Carruthers. He was the youngest of 3 children in his family. In addition to tennis Gaudio played football and rugby as a child and chose tennis to help out his parents financially when their business ran into economic problems.
Gaudio started playing tennis at the age of six. He finished as No. 2 in Argentine juniors in 1996 and turned professional the same year.
Gaudio finished as No. 2 junior in Argentina in 1996. Gaudio was ranked at 639 in the world in 1997.
In 1998 he reached four ATP Challenger finals during the second half of the year and won three of them. He won in Elche with a victory over fellow Argentine Diego Hipperdinger in July. He lost in Belo Horizonte to Brazilian Francisco Costa, and won in Santa Cruz with a victory over Ecuadorian Luis Morejón, both in August. He finished the year by winning in Santiago defeating Karim Alami and ranked world No. 138.
Gaudio won two consecutive Challengers in Nice and Espinho defeating Jacobo Díaz and Markus Hipfl, respectively. Gaudio's first notable performance was when he reached the third round at the French Open as a qualifier, so he won five matches total at the event, including coming back from two sets to love down in the second round against Bernd Karbacher to win, then losing to world No. 6 Àlex Corretja. He finished the year ranked No. 73.
2000 saw Gaudio establish himself on the main tour and win his only Challenger of the year in Braunschweig over countryman Franco Squillari. In addition to his Challenger title, Gaudio made the semifinals in Auckland, Santiago and, in his most impressive performance of the season, the Monte Carlo Masters, where he defeated Marat Safin, Félix Mantilla, Julien Boutter, and Juan Carlos Ferrero without dropping a set, before losing to Slovakia's Dominik Hrbatý in a tough three-set match. Gaudio also made the final of Stuttgart, again playing against fellow-Argentine Franco Squillari. Gaudio lost the final in five sets despite having beaten his opponent soundly in the Gstaad quarterfinals and in the Braunschweig finals earlier in the year (both on clay) and leading Squillari 2 sets to 1 in Stuttgart. Gaudio also represented Argentina in his first Olympic Games, losing to Vladimir Voltchkov of Belarus in the first round. He finished the year ranked No. 34.
Gaudio started his 2001 in poor fashion, losing his first four matches of the season to Vladimir Voltchkov, former French Open finalist Andrei Medvedev, three-time French Open winner Gustavo Kuerten, and, in his Davis Cup debut, Mexican Bruno Echagaray. Gaudio soon went back to his winning ways, however, reaching the final of Viña del Mar, losing to bitter rival and countryman Guillermo Coria. Gaudio would avenge that defeat to Coria in a hard-fought victory in the quarterfinals of Buenos Aires, which involved both players making rude gestures and insulting each other regularly. After this victory, Gaudio lost in the semifinals to José Acasuso. In the American hard-court swing after the 2001 Australian Open, he made the quarterfinals of the Miami Masters, losing to 19th seed Jan-Michael Gambill. Along the way, Gaudio dismantled fifth seed Russian Yevgeny Kafelnikov, and toughed out a three-set slugfest against future French Open winner and 12th seed Juan Carlos Ferrero. Although he did not manage to win his first title in 2001, Gaudio had some success, making a final, a semifinal and four quarterfinals (one of them at the prestigious Miami Masters). In addition to this, he helped Argentina return to the World Group with a perfect 5–0 record in his singles matches, which were all played in Argentina on clay courts. The year was not great though; Gaudio lost a lot of early-round matches and an astounding 12 first-round matches, never making it past the first round of a Grand Slam. Because of his inability to win these early-round matches, Gaudio's ranking slipped from No. 34 at the beginning of the year to No. 48 at the end of 2001.
Gaudio had a decent start to his 2002 campaign, making the third round of the Australian Open and the quarterfinals of Indian Wells Masters as well as the round of 16 at Miami Masters. Continuing on from his successful Davis Cup debut, in 2002 Gaudio defeated Ivo Karlović in the fifth match to secure a semifinal place for Argentina. Gaudio also won the first tournament of his career in Barcelona without dropping a set. Gaudio defeated world No. 1 and US Open champion Lleyton Hewitt in the semifinals, and then dismissed Spaniard and French Open winner of the same year Albert Costa, in the final. Gaudio followed up his maiden title with another in Mallorca a week later.
Gaudio made the fourth round of the French Open, losing to Juan Carlos Ferrero, in five sets, having led 4–1 in the final set. After Roland Garros, Gaudio made the final in Gstaad and the semifinals in Kitzbühel, losing on both occasions to Àlex Corretja. In the Davis Cup semifinals against Russia, Gaudio was leading 5–1 in the fifth set against Yevgeny Kafelnikov and had a match point, which was overruled by umpire Jorge Dias in Kafelnikov's favour, who then went on to take the set 8–6 and the match. He finished the year ranked No. 21.
There were no titles for Gaudio in 2003, but he was involved in two controversies, the first of them involved compatriot Guillermo Coria in the Hamburg Masters. They were part of an all-Argentine semifinal lineup, the others being David Nalbandian and Agustín Calleri. Gaudio and Coria played in one semifinal, and Coria won the first set and Gaudio the second. Coria took an injury timeout for cramps. After the timeout, Coria, after breaking serve at the change of ends beat his left breast while staring at his opponent, which Gaudio took as an insult. Coria proceeded to win the last set 6–0, and there was allegedly a confrontation after the match in the locker room.
The other was the Davis Cup in the semifinals against Spain in Málaga, where the two top Argentine players Guillermo Coria and David Nalbandian were unavailable due to injury. An out-of-form Gaudio was called up along with Agustín Calleri, Mariano Zabaleta, and Lucas Arnold. Although Gaudio had a 4–0 singles record from the first round and quarterfinals coming into the semifinals, Spain won 3–2, with Gaudio losing both of his singles matches. In the first rubber against Juan Carlos Ferrero, he lost 14 games in a row in a 4–6, 0–6, 0–6 defeat. In the fifth and deciding rubber against Carlos Moyà, he lost in straight sets and was roundly criticized back in Argentina for these performances. "When I returned to Buenos Aires after playing Davis Cup in Moscow and Málaga, you had the impression it was my fault and that hurt me," he said. He finished the year ranked No. 34.
2004: French Open title & top 10
2004 started slowly for Gaudio, but he eventually reached the final in Barcelona, losing to Tommy Robredo in five sets, then posted two victories in the World Team Cup over Martin Verkerk and Lleyton Hewitt.
Gaudio came into the French Open ranked 44th and was unseeded for the tournament. In the first round, he upset top-10 player and compatriot Guillermo Cañas over two days in five sets. Then he won another five-set match against Jiří Novák. Gaudio dropped only one more set en route to the final, as he defeated Thomas Enqvist, Igor Andreev, Lleyton Hewitt, and David Nalbandian to set up an unprecedented all-Argentine final with world No. 3, then-reigning "King of Clay", and pre-tournament favourite Guillermo Coria.
In the final, Gaudio defeated Coria in five sets after Coria had served for the match at 6-5 in the fifth set and had two championship points. Gaudio became the first Argentine to win a Grand Slam since Guillermo Vilas in 1979, and the first man ever to win a Grand Slam after losing the first set 6–0. He became the fifth-lowest-ranked player to win a Grand Slam, the first man in the open era to win a Grand Slam having saved match points in the final. Gaudio reached the top 10 in the ATP Entry rankings for the first time. Gaudio had achieved his childhood dream by winning at Roland Garros. He stated that his father, Norberto, who overcame a life-threatening illness, as the biggest inspiration for him.