Italian tennis player Federico Luzzi dies of Leukemia at 28

Italian tennis pro Federico Luzzi, a former top 100 player, died this morning of leukemia at a Florence, Italy hospital. The 28-year-old was taken to the hospital earlier this week with a high fever and was then diagnosed with an acute case of leukemia. This morning he went into an irreversible coma and passed away shortly after.

“Losing a young man so tragically in the prime of his life, a son to a loving family and a great sportsman is a terrible blow. Federico was hugely respected by his fellow professionals and was one of the most popular players on the ATP Tour. Federico will be much missed by all who knew him and the thoughts and the prayers of everyone at the ATP are with Federico's family on this very sad day for tennis,” said ATP Chairman Etienne de Villiers.

Picking up his first tennis racquet at the age of three, Luzzi would turn pro in 1999 and eventually reach a career high ranking of No. 92 in the South African Airways ATP Rankings in 2002. Throughout his career, Luzzi won many matches over highly distinguished tennis players including 2004 French Open champion Gaston Gaudio, former World No. 2 and two-time French Open finalist Alex Corretja, former Top 5 player and 2004 French Open finalist Guillermo Coria and 2005 French Open runner-up Mariano Puerto. Luzzi also defeated many current tennis stars during his tennis career including Mario Ancic, Dmitry Tursunov, Dominik Hrbaty, Arnaud Clement and Feliciano Lopez.

During the prime of his career, Luzzi was a major contributor to the Italian Davis Cup team. In 2001, he won a Davis Cup singles match against Finland 14-12 in the fifth set in a match that lasted four hours and 35 minutes, the longest Davis Cup match ever played by an Italian player.

This season, the Arezzo, Italy native competed in six challenger events, reaching the quarterfinals at events in Belgrade, Serbia and Todi, Italy. In his last event he fell to Italian Pietro Fanucci, 0-6, 7-6(6), 6-2, in the opening round at the Napoli, Italy challenger tournament. Throughout his lengthy professional tennis career, Luzzi posted an 18-31 record, while earning $544,562 in tournament prize money.

He is survived by his parents, Maurizio and Paola, and older sister, Francesca.