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Knowle was a successful player on the ATP Challenger Series, winning the Challenger tournaments in Kyoto (1999), Caracas (2001), Graz (2001) and Andrezieux (2002) and reaching the finals in Yokohama (2000), Bristol (2000), Besançon (2000) and Graz (2003). He also won several Futures tournaments. Knowle's best ATP singles ranking was no. 86 in July 2002. He appeared last in the main draw of a singles tournament in the Graz Challenger in 2005 where he reached the quarter final. Knowle reached his first of two Grand Slam finals at Wimbledon in 2004 together with Nenad Zimonjić of Serbia. Eventually the team was defeated in four sets by Jonas Björkman and Todd Woodbridge. The only Austrian to reach a final at Wimbledon before was Georg von Metaxa in doubles in 1938 where he too lost. In 2005 Knowle teamed up with Czech Petr Pála for several months without being able to continue his successful run with Zimonjić. This changed when he formed a team with fellow Austrian player and left-hander Jürgen Melzer, joining him throughout most of 2005 and 2006. Together they won two tournaments in doubles and reached another five finals. Following Jürgen Melzer's hand injury in early 2007, Knowle found a new partner in Simon Aspelin of Sweden. At the 2007 U.S. Open, seeded tenth with his partner Simon Aspelin, Knowle achieved the greatest triumph of his career by winning the U.S. Open, his first Grand Slam. In the first two rounds, they won over Kubot/Skoch 6 � 2 6 � 2 and got a walkover over Calleri/Horna. They went on to upset the eighth seeds Jonathan Erlich and Andy Ram (who would go on to win the 2008 Australian Open men's doubles) in the third round. In the quarterfinals, they shocked the top seeds Bob and Mike Bryan 7 � 5 6 � 4, having lost to them only weeks before. In the semifinals, they held off unseeded Julien Benneteau and Nicolas Mahut 7 � 6(2) 1 � 6 6 � 3, before winning the final 7 � 5 6 � 4 over the ninth seeds, Pavel Vízner and Lukáš Dlouhý. They had previously won three tournaments together. This win put them into the No. 5 position in the ATP Doubles Race, and also gave Knowle his first top 10 ranking in doubles. Julian Knowle was the second of so far three Austrian tennis players to win a Grand Slam tournament (the first in doubles). The first Austrian to win a Grand Slam tournament was Thomas Muster at the 1995 French Open, the third one was Jürgen Melzer who won the 2010 Wimbledon Championships � Men's Doubles with his German partner Philipp Petzschner. Their excellent first year as a team enabled Knowle and Aspelin to participate in the Tennis Masters Cup in Shanghai, China for the first time. They surprisingly made it all the way to the finals, beating Pavel Vízner and Lukáš Dlouhý, Arnaud Clément and Michaël Llodra and finally Martin Damm and Leander Paes before eventually falling in straight sets to Mark Knowles and Daniel Nestor 2 � 6, 3 � 6. Their first Masters Cup participation put the duo into the no. 3 spot of the ATP Doubles Race for the first time. In December 2007 Knowle suffered from acute hearing loss. Knowle and Aspelin were not able to continue their successful 2007 run, reaching five semi-finals together in the 2008 season and reaching the 3rd round of the French Open as their best Grandslam result. Together with Jürgen Melzer Knowle participated at the 2008 Olympic Games in China. They defeated the German duo of Nicolas Kiefer and Rainer Schüttler in three sets in the first round before being knocked out of the tournament by Bob and Mike Bryan of the USA 6-7(2), 4-6. Starting early 2009 Knowle formed a team with fellow Austrian Jürgen Melzer once more though occasionally also teaming with other players. Knowle and Melzer enjoyed little success on the tour in the first half of 2009 before their performance increased significantly in the later weeks, winning titles in New Haven and Tokyo and reaching another final in Vienna. Unfortunately their success came too late in the year to qualify for the Masters Cup. In 2010 Knowle played the first months of the year with Sweden's Robert Lindstedt. Together they reached Knowle's last doubles final to date in Marseille where they lost in straight sets. Due to little succes on the tour together Knowle and Lindstedt parted ways with Knowle teaming with Andy Ram from Israel. Their best performance would come at the French Open at Roland Garros where they surpringly reached the semi-finals. Knowle's 2011 stint was plagued by numerous injuries. Following a groin injury he teamed up once more with Simon Aspelin but they had little success. A torn muscle fascicle in April ended their partnership, forcing Knowle to pause for six weeks. His planned return to the tour failed when a partially torn tendon prevented him to participate at the French Open and defend his semi-final success from the previous year. |