John H. Millman OLY (born 14 June 1989) is an Australian professional tennis player and commentator. He reached a career-high singles ranking of world No. 33 in October 2018. He has won one ATP title in his career.
Personal life
Millman was born in Brisbane, Australia, into a family of five children (four girls) and he is the second youngest. During his schooling years he attended Brisbane Grammar School then the Anglican Church Grammar School . Outside tennis he enjoys soccer and supports Liverpool F.C. who compete in the English Premier League. In January 2019, Millman received the OLY post-nominal title at the Brisbane International tournament.
Junior career
Millman made his ITF junior tournament debut in Darwin as a 15-year-old in 2004 and reached the quarterfinals. He made his junior Grand Slam debut at the 2006 Australian Open. He won his first junior tournament in June 2006 at a tournament held in New Caledonia. He then won his next two tournaments in a row held in Fiji and New Zealand respectively. He competed in his last junior tournament at the 2007 Australian Open.
Junior singles finals (3)
Professional career
2008–12: First Future & Challenger titles, top 200
In 2008, Millman started to pursue professional tennis. He won the F8 Futures in Australia, was runner-up at an F1 in Romania losing to Răzvan Sabău and made the semis of a Morocco F5 tournament. In 2009, Millman's success on the junior circuit continued, making the final of an F2 in Bulgaria and claiming three semi-final appearances: two in Italy and one in Bulgaria. In the same year, Millman injured his back while training with the Australian junior Davis Cup team. Millman improved his career ranking from close to 1,000 to the 300s in 2009. He achieved this by a semi-final performance in a Challenger tournament in Burnie, Tasmania. He won his second Futures event in Kalgoorlie defeating Matthew Ebden and made the second round of qualifying at the Australian Open.
Millman started 2010 by winning a wildcard entry into his hometown tournament, the Brisbane International. Unfortunately, he was drawn to play defending champion Radek Štěpánek in the first round and lost in straight sets. Millman reached the final round of qualifying at the Australian Open qualifying losing to Ukrainian Illya Marchenko. He won his third Futures title in Berri on grass defeating Greg Jones in the final in February. In September, Millman returned to Australia to claim his fourth Futures title of his career in Darwin. In October, he won his first Challenger title in Sacramento by defeating Robert Kendrick.
Millman was again awarded a wildcard into the 2011 Brisbane International main draw where he lost to fellow Australian Matt Ebden. He then competed in Sydney and Australian Open qualifying but fell in the second round in both tournaments. He then competed in Challengers spread across Asia, Australia and Europe before injuring his shoulder during an Italian futures tournament in April. He continued playing injured until Wimbledon qualifying where he lost in the first round to Fritz Wolmarans. Following the loss at Wimbledon he returned to Australia and did not compete in a tennis tournament again until 2012.
At the beginning of 2012 Millman used his protected ranking to enter the Brisbane International qualifying tournament and managed to win three matches to qualify for the main draw, where he lost in the first round to Santiago Giraldo. He then travelled to Melbourne to compete in Australian Open qualifying but was ousted in the first round by Vasek Pospisil. After a year with mixed results on the Future and Challenger circuits, Millman won his first title in over two years in Bendigo where he defeated Ben Mitchell in the final. He finished 2012 with a ranking of World No. 199.
2013–15: Continued Challenger success, injuries and top 100
Millman began 2013 at the Brisbane International where he entered qualifying and recorded straight set wins over Luke Saville, Alex Bogomolov and Donald Young to make it into the main draw. He then recorded his first ever ATP win against Tatsuma Ito in the first round. Following that victory, he was awarded a main draw wildcard into the 2013 Australian Open. In the second round of Brisbane he faced World No. 3 Andy Murray and lost in three sets.
Following an impressive performance at the Brisbane International, an Australian writer/sports physiologist coined the term 'Millminions' to describe Millman's extensive and loyal fans base. This has since been adopted by the Australian tennis community.