Carlos Costa

Maintaining a season ranking for eight consecutive seasons is a very rare thing when it comes to tennis. Not many have been able to achieve this feat. But one man, Carles “Carlos" Costa Masferrer did manage to do this. Costa turned pro in 1988. He was among the game's leading clay court players in the early 1990s.

The Spaniard finished in Top 75 ATP Tour Rankings for the eighth consecutive season. In the first match of the year in Doha, he defeated World No. 8-ranked Sergi Bruguera in 1st RD. It was something not many people had heard of back in the day. He made his successful clay court debut in April with back-to-back QF in Estoril. However he lost to Moya. In Barcelona, he defeated No. 10 Kuerten and Safin before falling to eventual champion T. Martin.

When he was on the court, he played well during the European summer season, earning third top 10 win in Stuttgart, defeating No. 10 Corretja in 2nd RD before falling to eventual winner Kuerten. That was just not it, two weeks later he reached the semi finals in San Marino but lost to Hrbaty and followed with the title at Graz Challenger when he defeated Portas. During the course of his career, he compiled a 14-15 record on clay and 7-8 on hard. He is also one of the few players of his time who have surpassed the $3 million mark in career earnings.

Singles wasn’t the only place where he showed his expertise. In 1989, he won the doubles titles at three Challengers which were all with Carbonell. In 1990, he won the singles title at Zaragoza Challenger and doubles at Ljubljana Challenger with Roig. Over the course of his career, he has won almost 20 matches, 1all of them came on a clay court. In 1991 he won the  Venice and Siracusa Challengers and broke into the Top 100.

Costa had been very consistent in his playing style and was able to achieve various rankings in his tennis career. Being a right-handed player gave him an advantage in the forehand shots and enabled him to throw powerful forehands and backhands. His single-handed backhand was as lethal as they can get.

During his time he also surpassed $1 million in career earnings.

As far as his personal life is concerned, he is not related to Albert Costa. As a child, he began playing tennis with his father and two older brothers. His father had a huge influence on him as a kid when he started playing tennis. They were all members of the Real Club Tennis. When he was playing as an amateur, he won the Spanish Junior championships in 1986 and in 1990 Spanish doubles title withF. Clavet and singles in 1991-92. Besides just playing tennis, Costa was also a fan of Rolling Stones, Doors, Rod Stewart, and AC/DC.  He has a career record of 6-5 in seven Davis Cup. Costa has also played in the Atlanta Olympic Games, losing to Andrea Gaudenzi in 1st RD.

Grand Slams

Aus Open 3R (1993)

French Open 4R (1992,1993)

Wimbledon 2R (1992,1993,1994)

US Open 4R (1992)

Doubles 

Career titles: 5