Albert Montañés Roca was born in Sant Cartes de la Ràpita on November 26, 1980. He started playing tennis at the age of six, and his parents Joan Francesc and Elodia enrolled him in the local Serramar Tennis Club. It was there where his tennis progressively improved and he began accumulating victories.
At the age of thirteen, after several professionals notice his exceptional tennis qualities and he was already one of the best young players in the Tarragona region, Albert began training at the Reus Monterols Tennis club. At sixteen, Albert’s talent was out of the question, so he moved to Barcelona to continue his training at the Pro-AB club.
The first important achievement of his tennis career came in 1997, when he won Spain’s Junior’s Championship even though he was a rookie in the junior’s category. A year later, in 1998, Albert joined the ATP tour where he would jump to number 174 in the world rankings after playing just three seasons.
The 2001 season was a pivotal one in Albert’s career: he won his first international title at the Challenger de Freudenstadt, and he reached his first ATP final in Bucharest. On top of that, he also made his Grand Slam debut playing in Roland Garros, and was able to jump into the top 100 of the ATP. His highest ranking that year was 65 in the world, and since then, he has always remained within the top 100 of the ATP.
After Bucharest, Albert also reached the finals in Valencia (2004), Acapulco (2005) and Casablanca (2007), although he had to wait until his fifth final in Amersfoort (2008) to win his first ATP title. Shortly after, and always under the supervision of his trainer and fellow townsman Narcís Pelach, Albert won four other titles: Bucharest (2009), Estoril (2009 and 2010) and Stuttgart (2010). To these five individual titles, Albert added two additional ones in doubles: one in Casablanca (2008) partnering with Santi Ventura and another one in Doha (2010), next to Guillermo García-López.
Albert is known for his powerful right winners, his agility, and especially for his mental strength. His favorite surface is clay, where he has attained his biggest accomplishments. In recent seasons, his grass and fast court game has improved, having reached the third round in Wimbledon as well as the semifinals in Auckland and Montpellier and the fourth round in the US Open and the third round in the Australian Open, these last two in 2010.
On Aug. 2nd and 16th 2010, Albert reached number 22 in the ATP, his best ranking yet. Within Spain´s ranking, he has been ten years in the top ten, and currently he sits at number six. Besides that, he has won several Spanish Club titles with his team RCT Barcelona.
At present, Albert is one of Spain´s players eligible to play with the Spanish Davis Cup team and throughout his career he has had some amazing victories. The last one happened in May 8th 2008, when he beat Roger Federer in the semifinals of Estoril, becoming the second Spanish player) who was able to beat the Swiss, when this one was number one in the world (only Rafael Nadal had done it before). Some of his other victories worth mentioning were against top ten players such as Marian Cilic, Robin Soderling, Gilles Simon, James Blake, Karol Kucera, Albert Costa, Fernando González, Carlos Moyà, Gustavo Kuerten o Michael Chang.
Albert´s brothers are also tied to the world of tennis. His older brother Jonhy has a club in Sant Carles de la Ràpita, and his younger one Franky has also joined the ATP tour after winning Spain´s cadet category in 2006.
Away from the courts, Albert loves soccer and he´s a devoted fan of FC Barcelona. He also enjoys action movies.