Petr Pála
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Petr Pála (born October 2, 1975 in Prague) is a professional male tennis player from the Czech Republic. Together with Pavel Vízner he reached the men's doubles final of the 2001 French Open but lost to Indians Mahesh Bhupathi and Leander Paes (6-7, 3-6). Petr is coached by his father Frantisek, which was a professional tennis player on the ATP tour.
Petr never had the opportunity to do his singles ability justice on the ATP Tour due to injury. When he recovered from these injuries he returned immediately to the doubles tour, but could not gain entry to official ATP matches.
Petr has a cult following when he competes at the Australian Open. Every year a group of Australian fans attend matches only for Petr, showing respect to his partner but utter hatred and occasional disrespect for his opponents, officials and security.
Petr loves these fans, namely Julian Sahhar, Matthew Parisi, Tristan Foenander, Michael Miles, William Shin, John Crozier-Durham and William Cox; although William lost favour when he took Petr's "Kangaroo" Jacket after a match in 2005.
Petr is also known to have quite a good sense of humour with a slight temper to match. Petr can sometimes let a bad line call frustrate him. His nicknames include: Petey, Giraffe and Bubba Pala.
His matches are referred to as "Petr Pala's Perfect Performances."
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