Gilad Bloom (Hebrew: ???? ?????, born 1 March 1967) is a former professional tennis player from Israel. Bloom trained at the Israel Tennis Centers. His career-high rankings were World No. 61 in singles (in 1990) and World No. 62 in doubles (in 1992).
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Tennis career
A left-handed player, Bloom was Israel's junior champion, 3-time men's singles champion, and 2-time men's doubles champion. Bloom came in second in the boy's under-12 final at the annual Ericsson Orange Bowl International Tennis Championships in 1979.
Bloom turned professional in 1983, and played on the ATP tour for 13 years. During his career he won four tour doubles titles (at Tel Aviv and São Paulo in 1987, and at Seoul and Umag in 1991). He also finished runner-up in three top-level singles events (Tel Aviv in 1989, Manchester in 1990, and Singapore in 1991).
Bloom played Davis Cup for Israel from 1984-95. He helped Israel qualify to the 1994 Davis Cup World Group, winning the qualification playoff's 5th and deciding rubber against Switzerland's Jakob Hlasek in one of the most memorable matches in Israeli tennis history.
His best singles performance at a Grand Slam event was at the 1990 US Open, where he reached the 4th round before being knocked out by Ivan Lendl. At Wimbledon in June 1991 he lost to world # 8 Guy Forget in 5 sets, 6-2, 6-7(2), 5-7, 7-6(4), 4-6, despite winning 171 points to Forget's 168.
Among his upsets were in May 1988 world # 14 Martín Jaite, 6-4, 2-6, 6-2, at Forest Hills; in June 1990 # 25 Petr Korda, 6-0, 6-4, 4-6, 6-2, in Wimbledon, in June 1991 # 16 Brad Gilbert, 6-2, 6-0, in Manchester, England; and in June 1994 # 16 Carlos Costa in Austria, 6-3, 3-6, 7-5.
Bloom represented Israel at the 1988 and 1992 Olympic tennis tournaments.
He retired from the professional tour in 1995.
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Career finals
Singles (3 runners-up)
Coaching career
Since retiring from the tour, Bloom has played in seniors events and worked as a tennis coach and Director Of Tennis.
In 1995 he was senior coach with the Israel Tennis Centers, coaching the country's top juniors among them Dudi Sela.
Since moving to NYC in 2000 Bloom had his own tennis program (Gilad Bloom Tennis) for 9 years and was also the first Director Of Tennis at The John Mcenroe Tennis Academy in Randall's Island, NY (2010-2012). After leaving the Mcenroe Academy Bloom worked as The Executive Director Of Tennis at TCR (The Club Of Riverdale) in Riverdale, NY.(2012-2015). Bloom is currently back to running his own Tennis program (Gilad Bloom Tennis) in NYC.
Personal life
Bloom is Jewish (secular), and is married to Michal Bareket-Bloom. He has a son, Guy Tyler Bloom, (from a previous marriage) and another son, Jonathan Yehuda Bloom (from his second marriage). He is known as a fan of the Hapoel Tel Aviv soccer team. Bloom has a rock band (The Gilad Bloom Band), the band plays shows in Manhattan Bars regularly since 2009, Bloom's band performs original songs written and composed by himself, Bloom sings and plays guitar on the band.
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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