Mark Philippoussis

Mark Anthony Philippoussis is an Australian tennis player. He turned professional in 1994. His father is Greek, while his mother is of Italian ancestry but speaks Greek.

He has had a minor career in modeling and was featured in the American reality television dating show Age of Love. He was educated at Wesley College, Melbourne.

Philippoussis was born in Melbourne and educated at Wesley College.


Coached by his father, Nick, the right-hander has played tennis since he was six years of age. He was briefly coached by former 1987 Wimbledon champion Pat Cash, which ended in an acrimonious split in 2000. In 1994, he finished third in single ranking for juniors. Philippoussis also finished as junior doubles champion with Ben Ellwood in Australia, Wimbledon, and Italy. He turned professional in 1994.

In 1995, at the age of 19, he was the youngest player in the year-end top 50. In 1996, he reached the 4th round of the Australian Open upsetting Pete Sampras in the 3rd round and in doubles with Patrick Rafter. On 25 May 1997, he recorded a personal best 229.0 km/h (142.3 mph) serve in a game he lost to Albert Costa. During the height of his career, Mark was known as having one of the fastest services in the game.

At the 1998 U.S. Open, Philippoussis reached his first Grand Slam final, losing to fellow Australian Patrick Rafter. In January 1999, Philippoussis and Jelena Dokic won the Hopman Cup for Australia, defeating Sweden’s Åsa Carlsson and Jonas Björkman in the final tie. This remains the only time that Australia won the Hopman Cup.

On 29 March 1999, Philippoussis entered the top 10 for the first time and stayed there for 10 weeks. He advanced to the quarterfinals at Wimbledon in 1999 for the second straight year, where he retired in the second set against Sampras after having won the first set. During that match, Philippoussis suffered a moderate cartilage tear in his left knee and underwent arthroscopic surgery four days later. Sampras later remarked that he “dodged a bullet out there”. Philippoussis returned to professional tennis seven weeks later at the Indianapolis Tennis Championships and lost his second round match after receiving a bye in the first round. He did not play again until October in Singapore, where he lost in the second round. He finished 1999 at No. 19.

2000 was the fourth consecutive year in which Philippoussis finished in the top 20, at World No. 11. He reached the fourth round at the Australian Open, losing to eventual champion Andre Agassi. He defeated Sampras, then the World No. 2, 8–6 in the fifth set at the French Open in a first round match but lost in the fourth round to Juan Carlos Ferrero. For the third consecutive year, he made it to the quarterfinals at Wimbledon, losing again to Agassi. He appeared in his second Olympic Games in Sydney, losing in the third round to eventual gold medalist Yevgeny Kafelnikov.

Philippoussis finished 2002 in the top 100 (seventh time in eight years), despite not winning a title. He moved from Miami to the San Diego, California area in September 2002.

He is engaged to actress Jennifer Esposito.