He reached the semifinals of Wimbledon as a qualifier 25 years ago but never won another match at the tournament

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For many players, Wimbledon is the most important tournament on the tennis calendar…

25 years ago, Pete Sampras, Andre Agassi, Magnus Norman, and Gustavo Kuerten lined up as the top four seeds at Wimbledon.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Sampras and Agassi lived up to their seedings, as they made their way through to the semifinals.

However, as Norman and Kuerten slipped up, the last two semifinal spots were filled by Australia’s Pat Rafter and a Belarusian qualifier ranked 237th in the world.

During an exclusive interview with The Tennis Gazette, Vladimir Voltchkov looked back upon his remarkable run to the Wimbledon semifinals in 2000.

Vladimir Voltchkov says he ‘anticipated’ legendary Wimbledon run

The Belarusian won the junior title at Wimbledon in 1996 and reached the third round on his debut in 1998, giving him the confidence he needed to make history in 2000.

“This performance was anticipated by me, my father, and my family, because I had been working pretty hard, but until that Wimbledon performance, I did not quite get to that stage I was dreaming about,” said Voltchkov.

“Winning the junior title and then having a pretty good run in 1998 as well. I think I qualified and went all the way to the third round, where I lost to Davide Sanguinetti. I played a couple of good matches, including beating Karol Kucera in the first round, who at that time was a top 15 or top 10 player in the world. It gave me a lot of confidence.”

Voltchkov continued to grow in confidence as he made his way through the main draw 25 years ago.

“Once I started going through the main draw, I felt a bit of relief, more and more, every match. That relief was giving me more and more confidence from match to match,” he said.

The Belarusian was a natural on the grass courts of Wimbledon, in part thanks to the indoor facilities he used as a junior.

“The grass court game felt very natural because I grew up training a lot in indoor facilities with literally painted wood. You can imagine how fast that was!” said Voltchkov.

“Spending all those hours hitting the wall, when the ball bounces really fast coming back to you, every time I came on the grass, it actually felt like home.

“It sounds very interesting how a guy from a small country of Belarus, basically with a working background, both of my parents were working, very middle-class family, and here I am on the Centre Court of Wimbledon in this historical place, but it felt like home.”

Playing the best tennis of his career, Voltchkov booked his place in the Wimbledon semifinals, where he met the top seed and three-time defending champion Sampras.

Pete Sampras served and volleyed ‘100%’ of the time in the 2000 Wimbledon semifinal

Voltchkov was confident going into his match with Sampras, but believed he would have had a better chance against Agassi or Rafter, the other two semifinalists.

“Honestly, by the time I got to the semifinal, I became really very confident. I felt like my baseline game, I had an edge over almost anybody I practiced with or anybody I played with, and that was backed up by all the wins I had,” he said.

“Unfortunately for me, between the other three semifinalists, and I’m not going to say that I would have beaten the other two guys, because they were legends as well, Andre Agassi and Pat Rafter, but I felt like, if I played against one of those two guys I maybe could have a chance of getting a set, and then you never know where it goes from there on grass courts.”

Playing against the world number one, Voltchkov struggled to get to grips with Sampras’ serve and volley game.

“In the match with Pete [Sampras], he statistically played 100% serve and volley. Literally, the percentage was 100%, he did not stay back once on his serve, first or second serve,” he said.

“You can just imagine how psychologically difficult it is when you have the best player in the world at that time, non-stop, consistently coming at you. As confident as I felt on the baseline, I always felt under pressure, and it wasn’t easy.

“What happened, happened. It was a deserved win for Pete, and a tremendous experience for me.”

Sampras won the match in straight sets, 7-6, 6-2, 6-4, and went on to win the title, defeating Rafter in the final.

Voltchkov was proud of his efforts at SW19 in 2000, but struggled to replicate that level when he returned.

Vladimir Voltchkov never won another match at Wimbledon after 2000

The Belarusian returned to the main draw of Wimbledon in 2001 and 2003, losing his first-round match on both occasions.

• 2001 Wimbledon 1R – Vladimir Voltchkov lost to Mikhail Youzhny
• 2003 Wimbledon 1R – Vladimir Voltchkov lost to David Nalbandian

Voltchkov had hoped for more, but after ‘a lot’ of soul searching, he has a more positive outlook on his tennis career.

“It was not the career I may have dreamed about after reaching the Wimbledon semifinals,” he said.

“I did a lot of soul searching and a lot of thinking about that, and I still have mixed feelings.

“You can look at it from two different angles. One is, if you take the Wimbledon semifinal as standard and then look from there, then perhaps the rest of the career was not as bright.

“But if you’re thinking about someone from my background, with a working family, without the financial support you would probably have growing up in the Western world, I think I did quite alright.

“That performance has put me, I don’t want to sound too arrogant, but a little bit in the history books, at least of my country, and that, of course, felt awesome.”

Voltchkov retired in 2008 as one of the greatest players in the history of Belarusian tennis.

He has since worked within the national tennis federation, guiding the likes of Aryna Sabalenka to success on the WTA Tour.