You have to go all the way back to July 2002, in the large Russian city of Togliatti (or Tolyatti), 500 kilometres north-west of his birthplace in Orenburg, to find the first matches that Artem Sitak played in a professional tournament. I doubt that anybody present could have foreseen that the youngster would have a career that would last for over 21 years, encompassing just over 1,900 matches and reaching the heights of quarter-finals at Wimbledon in both men’s (2018) and mixed (2019) doubles.
Although he was good enough to win five ITF futures titles in singles, it’s as a doubles player, with a career-high ranking of 32, that Sitak will always be remembered. He won 15 ITF, 15 Challenger and five ATP titles, with his final victory coming, quite appropriately, at a Challenger tournament in June 2023 in Little Rock, Arkansas, his adopted American second home.
Sitak and his wife Anya moved to New Zealand in 2010, with Sitak first representing New Zealand in the Davis Cup in March 2011. The last two of his 25 appearances were winning ones, with Michael Venus against Bulgaria in February 2023, and with Finn Reynolds against Thailand in September. He announced his retirement last night, at the end of his first round loss in the ASB Classic.