last clay tournament, 2011 Open de Nice Côte d'Azur, before the 2011 French Open. He beat Filippo Volandri and Pere Riba to reach the quarterfinals. There, Dolgopolov pulled off an upset win over top seed David Ferrer. He lost to Victor Hănescu in straight sets in the semifinals. Dolgopolov entered the 2011 French Open as the 21st seed. In his first-round match, he played the oldest player in the ATP top 100, Rainer Schüttler at age 35, and won the match easily. He then beat Andreas Haider-Maurer comfortably to move into the third round but was beaten by Serbian 15th seed Viktor Troicki in four sets. Moving to the grass courts of Europe, Dolgopolov's first tournament was the 2011 Gerry Weber Open, seeded seventh, he faced Robin Haase in the first round and defeated him in three sets before succumbing to Philipp Kohlschreiber in two sets. Dolgopolov's next tournament was the 2011 Aegon International, where he was seeded second. He lost to Carlos Berlocq in straight sets. His dismal grass-court season continued into Wimbledon 2011, where he was seeded 22nd, with a first-round loss to Fernando González (who had not played in almost a year prior to a few small tournaments before Wimbledon). Before heading into the US Open series of hard-court tournaments, Dolgopolov returned to his beloved clay to play 2011 International German Open in Hamburg. Seeded tenth, he received a first-round bye, and then lost to Finnish player Jarkko Nieminen, despite being up two breaks in the third set. Dolgopolov then travelled to Croatia, where he took part in the 2011 ATP Studena Croatia Open, where he was seeded second. Receiving a first-round bye, he beat Filippo Volandri in the second round, finally winning an opening-round match after suffering four consecutive opening-round exits. In the quarterfinals, he beat Albert Ramos to set up a semifinal meeting with defending champion and former world no. 1 Juan Carlos Ferrero. There, Dolgopolov pulled off an impressive display to defeat the Grand Slam champion in straight sets. Entering his second final of the year, Dolgopolov played Croatian home-town favourite, former top-10 player and fourth seed Marin Čilić. Faced with a determined opponent, Dolgopolov needed three sets to beat Čilić and win his first ATP singles title. Dolgopolov entered the 2011 Rogers Cup unseeded, missing out on a seeding as world no. 21 (only the top 16 were seeded). He played Canadian wildcard