Paul-Henri Mathieu (; born 12 January 1982) is a French former professional tennis player. He won four singles titles on the ATP Tour. His best singles performance in an ATP World Tour Masters 1000 tournament was reaching the semifinals of the 2005 Canadian Open. He achieved a career-high ATP singles ranking of world No. 12 in April 2008. Tennis career Formative years Paul-Henri Mathieu was born in Strasbourg, France. He first began playing tennis when he was three and a half years old with his older brother Pierre-Yves. From 1997 to 2000, Paul-Henri trained at the IMG Bollettieri Tennis Academy in Bradenton, Florida before moving back to Paris. Juniors As a junior, Mathieu posted a singles record of 42–15 and a doubles record of 34–12, reaching as high as world no. 6 in singles and world no. 19 in doubles in January 2000. Mathieu won the boys' singles title at the 2000 French Open, defeating Tommy Robredo 3–6, 7–6(7–3), 6–2 in the final. 2000–2004 Mathieu made his ATP World Tour singles main draw debut in July 2000 in the Austrian town of Kitzbühel. 2002 was Mathieu's breakthrough year. He made the fourth round of the French Open, losing to Andre Agassi in five sets, despite having a two-set lead. Later on in the year, he confirmed his potential by winning back-to-back tournaments in Moscow and Lyon. He holds the distinction of being the last player to beat Pete Sampras before his retirement, which he did at the 2002 TD Waterhouse Cup. On 14 October, he became world no. 36, and his progress won him the ATP Newcomer of the Year award for 2002. He also nearly won the Davis Cup in 2002 with the French Davis Cup team, but lost the deciding rubber of the final to Mikhail Youzhny of Russia, once more after relinquishing a two-set advantage. 2005 In 2005, he achieved his best result in an ATP Masters Series event, knocking out Andy Roddick on his way to the semifinals at Montreal. He had a record of 2–2 in the four Davis Cup matches he played that year. He won both his matches against the Swedish opponents Thomas Johansson and Joachim Johansson, but lost to Russia's Nikolay Davydenko and Igor Andreev in the quarterfinal tie. 2006 2006 saw him equal his best result at a Grand Slam tournament by reaching the fourth round of the Australian Open. In