Joran Vliegen (born 7 July 1993) is a Belgian professional tennis player who specializes in doubles. He has a career high ATP doubles ranking of World No. 17 achieved on 7 August 2023. He also has a career high singles ranking of World No. 508 achieved on 1 August 2016. Vliegen has won eight ATP Tour doubles titles with partner Sander Gillé, including an ATP Masters 1000 title at the 2024 Monte-Carlo Masters.
Early life and background Vliegen was born in Maaseik, Belgium to parents Ivo Vliegen and Annick Desender. He has a brother named Warre. He started playing tennis at the age of five. In 2011 he moved to the United States to play college tennis at East Carolina University. He was named 2014 Conference USA Player of the Year. He earned undergraduate and graduate degrees in business.
He is not related to fellow Belgian tennis player Kristof Vliegen.
Career
2018: Davis Cup debut Vliegen made his debut with the Belgium Davis Cup team in 2018. In the quarterfinals against the United States, he and fellow Belgian Sander Gillé lost against Ryan Harrison and Jack Sock.
2019: Major debut and first quarterfinal, Three ATP titles In 2019 he and Gillé managed to pull off a surprise win over Brazil's Marcelo Melo and Bruno Soares in the Belgium-Brazil Davis cup tie contributing to Belgium qualifying for the 2019 Davis Cup Finals held in November.
Vliegen made his Grand Slam debut in the 2019 French Open, partnering Mikhail Kukushkin from Kazakhstan, where they managed to reach the quarterfinals. At Wimbledon 2019, Vliegen made his debut in a mixed doubles event, and reached the third round with Zheng Saisai from China.
Vliegen won his first ATP Tour doubles title at the 2019 Swedish Open with fellow Belgian Sander Gillé. One week later, again partnering with Gillé, he also won the title at the Swiss Open. The duo continued their winning streak by reaching the final of the Austrian Open, losing to Philipp Oswald and Filip Polášek. Two months later, Vliegen and Gillé picked up their third title of 2019 at the Zhuhai Championships.
2020–2021: Second Major quarterfinal, Masters semifinal, Olympics, top 30 Vliegen won two more titles with his partner Sander Gillé at the 2020 Astana Open and at the 2021 Singapore Open. They also reached the quarterfinals at the 2020 US Open (tennis) losing to the eventual runners-up Mektic/Koolhof, their best showing at the Grand Slam thus far. The pair made their first Masters 1000 semifinal at the 2021 Mutua Madrid Open losing to the 2nd seeded pair of Pavic/Mektic. As a result, Vliegen reached a career-high of No. 31 on 10 May 2021.
2022: Grand Slam mixed doubles final At the 2022 French Open, Vliegen and Gillé caused an upset by eliminating the defending champions and home favorites Pierre Hugues Herbert and Nicolas Mahut in three tight sets without dropping one service game. In the second round they saw off the Australian pairing of Luke Saville and Jordan Thompson before falling to the unseeded pairing of Rafael Matos and David Vega Hernández in a third super match tie-break.
He also entered the mixed doubles event for the first time, partnering Norwegian Ulrikke Eikeri. In the first round they won against the Kazakh pairing of Anna Danilina and Andrey Golubev in three sets. In the second round they progressed past the home team of Clara Burel and Hugo Gaston in straight sets. In the third round they faced 2021 Wimbledon champions Desirae Krawczyk and Neal Skupski and lost the first set comprehensively before bouncing back to win the second set in the tie-break and the third set match tie-break. Their semifinal followed a similar pattern, this time against 2018 Wimbledon champion Nicole Melichar and twice French Open Men's doubles champion Kevin Krawietz, with them again bouncing back from a poor first set to win the second in the tie-break and the third set match tie-break to reach their first Grand Slam final. They lost in the final to Ena Shibahara and Wesley Koolhof. This made Vliegen the first Belgian man to reach the final of a mixed doubles event of a Grand Slam tournament.
2023: Major doubles final, second mixed doubles final, top 20 At the 2023 French Open, Vliegen having never get passed the quarterfinals at this Major, partnering Gillé as an unseeded pair, they reached their first Major semifinal defeating fourth seeds Croatians Nikola Mektić/Mate Pavić, Roman Jebavý/Luis David Martínez, ninth seeds Santiago González/Édouard Roger-Vasselin, 14th seed Argentines Andrés Molteni/Máximo González and 12th seeds Andreas Mies/Matwé Middelkoop. In the final they lost to Ivan Dodig and Austin Krajicek in straight sets. At Wimbledon, he and Gillé lost in the third round of the men's doubles event, while Vliegen paired with Xu Yifan in mixed doubles to reach his second career final. This made him the first Belgian man in a Wimbledon mixed doubles final He made his top 20 debut on 7 August 2023 at world No. 17.
2024–2025: Masters title, new partnership with Behar At the 2024 Monte-Carlo Masters with Gille, they defeated wildcard pair of Jannik Sinner and Lorenzo Sonego, defending champions and second seeds Austin Krajicek and Ivan Dodig in the second round, and sixth seeds Tim Pütz and Kevin Krawietz to reach the semifinals. They reached their first Masters 1000 final upsetting third seeds Horacio Zeballos and Marcel Granollers. They won their first Masters title defeating alternate pair of Alexander Zverev and Marcelo Melo. They became just the second and third Belgians to win a Masters 1000 doubles title after Xavier Malisse won in Indian Wells in 2010.
Significant finals Grand slam finals Doubles: 1 (runner-up) ResultYearTournamentSurfacePartnerOpponentsScoreLoss2023French Open Clay Sander Gillé Ivan Dodig Austin Krajicek 3–6, 1–6
Mixed doubles: 2 (2 runner-ups) ResultYearTournamentSurfacePartnerOpponentsScoreLoss2022French Open Clay Ulrikke Eikeri Ena Shibahara Wesley Koolhof 6–7(5–7), 2–6Loss2023WimbledonGrass Xu Yifan Lyudmyla Kichenok Mate Pavić4–6, 7–6(11–9), 3–6
Masters 1000 finals Doubles: 1 (title) OutcomeYearChampionshipSurfacePartnerOpponents ScoreWin2024Monte CarloClay Sander Gillé Marcelo Melo Alexander Zverev5–7, 6–3, [10–5]
ATP career finals Doubles: 15 (8 titles, 7 runner-ups) LegendGrand Slam tournaments (0–1)ATP World Tour Finals (0–0)ATP World Tour Masters 1000 (1–0)ATP World Tour 500 Series (0–1)ATP World Tour 250 Series (7–5)Titles by surfaceHard (4–1)Clay (4–5)Grass (0–1)Titles by settingOutdoor (6–7)Indoor (2–0)
ResultW–LDateTournamentTierSurfacePartnerOpponentsScoreWin1–0Swedish Open, Sweden250 SeriesClay Sander Gillé Federico Delbonis Horacio Zeballos6–7(5–7), 7–5, [10–5]Win2–0Swiss Open, Switzerland250 SeriesClay Sander Gillé Philipp Oswald Filip Polášek 6–4, 6–3Loss2–1Austrian Open, Austria250 SeriesClay Sander Gillé Philipp Oswald Filip Polášek4–6, 4–6Win3–1Zhuhai Championships, China250 SeriesHard Sander Gillé Marcelo Demoliner Matwé Middelkoop7–6(7–2), 7–6(7–4)Win4–1Astana Open, Kazakhstan250 SeriesHard (i) Sander Gillé Max Purcell Luke Saville7–5, 6–3Win5–1Singapore Open, Singapore250 SeriesHard (i) Sander Gillé Matthew Ebden John-Patrick Smith 6–2, 6–3Loss5–2Bavarian Championships, Germany250 SeriesClay Sander Gillé Wesley Koolhof Kevin Krawietz6–4, 4–6, [5–10]Win6–2Maharashtra Open, India250 SeriesHard Sander Gillé Sriram Balaji Jeevan Nedunchezhiyan6–4, 6–4Win7–2Estoril Open, Portugal250 SeriesClay Sander Gillé Nikola Ćaćić Miomir Kecmanović6–3, 6–4Loss7–3French Open, FranceGrand SlamClay Sander Gillé Ivan Dodig Austin Krajicek3–6, 1–6Loss7–4Hamburg European Open, Germany500 SeriesClay Sander Gillé Kevin Krawietz Tim Pütz6–7(4–7), 3–6Loss7–5Hong Kong Open, Hong Kong250 SeriesHard Sander Gillé Marcelo Arévalo Mate Pavić6–7(3–7), 4–6Win8–5Monte-Carlo Masters, MonacoMasters 1000Clay Sander Gillé Marcelo Melo Alexander Zverev5–7, 6–3, [10–5]Loss8–6Geneva Open, Switzerland 250 SeriesClay Ariel Behar Sadio Doumbia Fabien Reboul7–6(7–4), 4–6, [9–11]Loss8–7Eastbourne International, United Kingdom250 SeriesGrass Ariel Behar Julian Cash Lloyd Glasspool4–6, 6–7(5–7)
Challenger and Futures Finals
Singles: 3 (2–1) Legend (singles)ATP Challenger Tour (0–0)ITF Futures Tour (2–1)Titles by surfaceHard (1–0)Clay (1–1)Grass (0–0)Carpet (0–0)
ResultW–LDateTournamentTierSurfaceOpponentScoreWin1–0Belgium F8, MiddelkerkeFuturesHard Julien Cagnina4–6, 6–3, 7–6(7–2)Loss1–1Belgium F14, MiddelkerkeFuturesClay Jeremy Jahn3–6, 4–6Win2–1Belgium F11, HuyFuturesClay Romain Barbosa6–4, 6–4
Doubles: 57 (41–16) Legend (doubles)ATP Challenger Tour (18–9)ITF Futures Tour (23–7)Titles by surfaceHard (10–5)Clay (29–10)Grass (0–0)Carpet (2–1)