Rainer Schüttler (German pronunciation:[ˈraɪnɐˈʃʏtlɐ]; born 25 April 1976) is a German former professional tennis player. Schüttler was the runner-up at the 2003 Australian Open and a semifinalist at the 2008 Wimbledon Championships. He won an Olympic silver medal in doubles at the 2004 Athens Olympics, and achieved a career-high ranking of world No. 5 in April 2004.
In 2003, Schüttler became the first German since Boris Becker in 1989 to advance to the fourth round at all Grand Slam tournaments. He became the first German to reach a Grand Slam final, at the Australian Open, since Michael Stich was the runner-up at Roland Garros in 1996. En route to the final, which he lost in straight sets to Andre Agassi, he defeated Andy Roddick who would end the season as world No 1.
In 2004, Schüttler reached his first career ATP Masters Series final in Monte Carlo by beating Gustavo Kuerten in the first round, Lleyton Hewitt in the third round, Tim Henman in the quarterfinal and Carlos Moyá in the semifinal. In the final, he lost to Guillermo Coria. That week, he would reach a career-high ranking of No. 5. Schüttler won a silver medal for Germany in men's doubles with partner Nicolas Kiefer at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens. 2004 was the sixth straight year in which he finished in the ATP top 50.
Schüttler reached his first career semifinal at Wimbledon by beating Santiago Ventura, James Blake, Guillermo García López, Janko Tipsarević, and Arnaud Clément 6–3, 5–7, 7–6, 6–7, 8–6. His match with Clément was over five hours, completed in two days to reach the semifinals, in which Schuettler saved a match point at 6–5 down in the fifth set. He was defeated by eventual champion Rafael Nadal 1–6, 6–7, 4–6. His achievement was a big surprise, since he entered the tournament ranked 94th and with a streak of 13 consecutive Grand Slam tournaments without making it past the second round.
His 2009 season Schüttler started off at the Chennai Open, beating Prakash Amritraj 6–2, 4–6, 6–1. In the second round, he beat Simon Greul 6–4, 6–2, and in the quarterfinals Björn Phau, 6–2, 7–5. Unfortunately Schuettler had to withdraw from his semifinal match against Somdev Devvarman because of a wrist injury. He also withdrew from the tournament in Sydney. At the Australian Open, he was seeded 30th but lost in the first round to Israeli Dudi Sela 1–6, 6–2, 6–4, 6–4. He also participated in the doubles with Lu Yen-hsun, but they were defeated by Łukasz Kubot and Oliver Marach. In the first round in Rotterdam, he lost to Mario Ančić. He played the Open 13 in Marseille, defeating Laurent Recouderc in the first round 6–1, 6–4.
He competed at the ARAG World Team Cup in Germany, helping his country reach the final, where they lost to Serbia.
In the second round at Wimbledon, though seeded 18th, he was upset by Dudi Sela, 7–6, 6–3, 6–2.[1][permanent dead link]
He reached the second round of the Australian Open defeating Sam Querrey in four sets. However he lost to Feliciano López in four sets, too. At the French Open, he again suffered a first-round exit, this time against Guillermo García López in straight sets. He reached the semifinal of the Aegon Championships at the Queens Club in London but lost to Sam Querrey in three sets 7–6, 5–7, 3–6. Despite his good form he was defeated by Denis Istomin in the second round of Wimbledon in five sets. At the quarterfinal of the Countrywide Classic in Los Angeles, Schüttler could not manage to close out the match against Querrey despite serving for it at 5–4 and 6–5 in the deciding set.
He was knocked out in the first round of the US Open losing to Benoît Paire.
At the Thailand Open in Bangkok, Schüttler beat Ricardo Mello in round one for a second round berth against Ernests Gulbis. He lost 6–7, 7–6, 4–6 in a close match.
In 2014 Rainer met Serbian Jovana Sesevic, whose sister Biljana is married to another former top 10 player, Janko Tipsarević.[2] They married in 2015 and have two sons (Noah and Leon) and now mostly reside in Switzerland.
Germany
Silver medal (2004)
Fernando González
Andre Agassi
Guillermo Coria
Tim Henman
Byron Black
Fabrice Santoro
Michel Kratochvil
Marat Safin
Younes El Aynaoui
Sjeng Schalken
Michael Hill 
Julian Knowle 
Nenad Zimonjić
Lu Yen-hsun
Mahesh Bhupathi 
Jonas Björkman
František Čermák 
Chris Haggard
Ernests Gulbis
Pablo Cuevas 
Marcel Granollers Pujol
Davide Sanguinetti
Sergiy Stakhovsky
Dudi Sela
Max Mirnyi
