Marcelo Andrés Ríos Mayorga (Latin American Spanish: [maɾˈselo ˈri.os]; born 26 December 1975) is a Chilean former professional tennis player.

1 in men's singles by the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP), the first Latin American to reach the top position.

Ríos won 18 ATP Tour-level singles titles, including five Masters events, and was the runner-up at the 1998 Australian Open.

Ríos was the first player to win all three clay court Masters tournaments (Monte Carlo, Rome, and Hamburg) since the format began in 1990.

He was also the third man (after Michael Chang and Pete Sampras) to complete the Sunshine Double (winning Indian Wells and Miami Masters in the same year), which he achieved in 1998.

Ríos began playing tennis at the age of 11 at the Sport Francés golf club in Vitacura (Greater Santiago), adjacent to his house.

In May 1995, aged 19, Ríos won his first tournament title in Bologna defeating Marcelo Filippini of Uruguay 6–2, 6–4, and breaking into the world's top 50 for the first time.

He reached the quarterfinals in Masters Series of Stuttgart and Rome, and the semifinals in Indian Wells, Monte Carlo, and Canada.

He won the tournament (the first of the year) in Auckland, New Zealand, against Richard Fromberg, then reached the final of the Australian Open, beating Grant Stafford, Thomas Enqvist, Andrew Ilie, Lionel Roux, Alberto Berasategui and Nicolas Escudé before losing to Petr Korda in a lopsided 2–6, 2–6, 2–6 that lasted 1 hour and 25 minutes.

The following months brought successes such as the title of the Super 9 (the current Masters Series) at Indian Wells, where he defeated British Greg Rusedski in the final.

After victories over Hendrik Dreekmann, Tommy Haas, and Goran Ivanišević, Ríos beat Thomas Enqvist in the quarterfinals and Tim Henman in the semifinals.

In Chile, thousands of people took to the streets to celebrate the triumph of the first Chilean, Latin and indeed Spanish speaking player to reach the sport's No.

1 ranking lasted four weeks; he lost it after being unable to defend the title at Monte Carlo because of an injury suffered in the Davis Cup while defeating Hernán Gumy in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

This prevented him from defending the points achieved by reaching the final of the Australian Open the previous year, so he fell several places in the rankings.

He reached the final of the Monte Carlo Masters, but after trailing 4–6, 1–2, he had to retire due to a new injury, handing the tournament to Gustavo Kuerten.

Despite many injuries he suffered and surgeries he underwent, Ríos would complete his third consecutive year as a top-ten player, at world No.

Since 2000 until the end of Ríos' career on the main tour, he was not able to keep up his level of play to the standards he set in the previous decade, as it was marked by repeated and disabling injuries.

However, his performance in the following tournaments was weaker, weakened by an ankle operation, which resulted in him dropping out of the top 50 in the world for the first time since he was a teenager.

Ríos decided to return in October to play a Challenger event in Santiago in an effort to end his curse of not winning an ATP tournament in his home country.

His best results were the quarterfinals at the Australian Open, the semifinals at the Miami Masters, and the final in the Stockholm tournament playing the Paradorn Srichaphan.

However, representing Chile alongside Fernando González and Nicolás Massú, he won the World Team Cup in Düsseldorf.

In May, Ríos played his last ATP-level match, losing in the first round of Roland Garros to Mario Ančić and retiring at 1–6, 0–1.

1 ranking, and after a long absence from the tour, Ríos returned to competition with a victory at a Challenger Series tournament in Ecuador.

He played his last competitive match in early April 2004 at a Challenger in San Luis Potosí, Mexico, where he retired in the round of 16.

[2] Following successful elbow surgery in November 2018, Ríos announced a comeback as part of his desire to become the oldest ever winner of a Challenger tournament,[3] though his plans ultimately did not come to fruition.

At his first tournament on the tour in Doha, Qatar, he defeated Thomas Muster, Henri Leconte, Pat Cash, and Cédric Pioline to claim the title.

Ríos met the 14-year-old Costa Rican Giuliana Sotela in September 1998 while he was training at the Nick Bollettieri Tennis Academy in Florida.

In April 2005, Ríos married model María Eugenia "Kenita" Larraín, a former fiancée of football player Iván Zamorano.

The couple subsequently experienced a very public break-up in September of the same year after an incident in Costa Rica in which Larraín was injured when Ríos allegedly threw her out of his car while he was driving to visit his daughter.

1At the 1998 ATP Tour World Championships (Tennis Masters Cup), Ríos withdrew at round robin stage after playing the first match.