Zeeshan Ali (born January 19, 1970 in
Calcutta) is a former
tennis player from
India, who competed at the
1988 Summer Olympics in
Seoul, where he was defeated in the second round by the number ten seed from
Switzerland,
Jakob Hlasek.
The right-hander reached his highest singles
ATP-ranking on December 12, 1988, when he became the number 126 of the world when he was still 3 weeks short of his 19th birthday.
He remained in the top-150 (with the exception of a couple of weeks) through August 1989. His singles highlights in 1988 included making R2 of the ATP tour event in Schenectady (losing to Kriek in R2) and at the Seoul Olympics (where he lost to Hlasek in R2), and making the final of a Challenger in New Haven, CT (losing to
Vijay Amritraj) and the semifinal of a Challenger in Indonesia. This decent set of performances had taken Zeeshan to 178 in the singles rankings in November 1988, but he then dominated a Satellite circuit in India—and jumped to a career-high 126 on 12 December 1988. At the end of 1988, Zeeshan's doubles ranking was at 154.
In 1989, Zeeshan made the QF of a Challenger in Nigeria early in the year, and then qualified into tour events in Key Biscayne, Tokyo (where he beat
Leif Shiras before losing to
Stefan Edberg in R2), Singapore and London (Queen's Club). In 1989 he played his only Grand Slam match, losing in straight sets to
Wally Masur at
Wimbledon.
In 1989, he made R2 of doubles at Wimbledon (losing to the seeded pair of Curren/Pate in four sets), and...
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