About Marsel İlhan Marsel İlhan is a Turkish tennis player, ranked No. 1 in Turkey and reached No. 151 in the world. He is the first ever Turkish player to reach 2nd round in a Grand Slam tournament . Also he is the first Turkish player to win a Challenger Tournament.Early Tennis Career Born in Uzbekistan, he immigrated to Turkey with his mother in 2004 and he started to play for the Taçspor Tennis Club of İstanbul . He was initially sponsored by Kia Motors Turkey. After several years of intensive training with his new coach Can Üner, a former Turkish tennis player, he made an unprecedented jump within one year from No. 1320 to No. 320 in 2007. 2007-2008 During 2007 and 2008 he won several Future Tournaments and in July 2008, he won his first Challenger title at Ramat Hasharon Israel Open by defeating Ivo Klec from Slovakia by 2 sets ( 6-4, 6-4 ) 2009 At the 2009 US Open, İlhan qualified for the main draw of a Grand Slam for the first time in his career. In doing so, he became the first Turkish player in the modern era to do so. In the first round he defeated Christophe Rochus from Belgium in a 5-set thriller, 3-6, 6-3, 3-6, 7-5, 7-5. It was the first time a Turkish man made the second round of a major, following his earlier achievement of being the first Turkish qualifier in a major. It was his first career ATP and Grand Slam win. He lost his second round match against John Isner 6-3, 6-4, 7-6. İlhan, in October qualified into the 2009 PTT Thailand Open. He defeated his first round opponent Benjamin Becker 4-6, 7-6(4), 6-3 but then lost to Jurgen Melzer 4-6, 2-6 in the 2nd Round. 2010 His current sponsor is Turkcell. In the first qualification round of Australian Open 2010 he defeated Canadian Peter Polansky 2-0 (6-1, 6-2). In the second qualification round he beat British No.2 Alex Bogdanovic with the same score 2-0 (6-4, 6-4). In the 3rd qualification round Marsel lost 1-2 to German tennis player Dieter Kindlmann after a tough game in which he lost the first set 5-7, won the second easily 6-1 and lost the final set 9-11, in a game that lasted well over 3 hours. However due to Gilles Simon's injury a spot opened up for an additional player to appear on the main draw. Marsel became "Lucky Loser" and progressed to the 1st round of Australian Open 2010. Marsel Ilhan proved that he was a worthy "Lucky Loser" as he easily defeated former World No. 4 Sébastien Grosjean in 3 sets, 3-0 (6-4 6-3 7-5). In the second round Marsel lost 0-3 to world No.11 Chilean Fernando Gonzalez. ( 3-6, 4-6 , 5-7 )