Tommy Paul secures Roland Garros ticket after winning Wild Card Challenge
The 21-year-old Tommy Paul has been on a career-high ranking this week after reaching the final of Tallahassee Challenger, the second in a row after winning the title in Sarasota. Besides that, Greenville resident has secured the spot in the main draw of the upcoming second Grand Slam of the season at Roland Garros after winning the USTA’s Roland Garros Wild Card Challenge. Entering the big stage at home in New York back in 2015 when he was still 18, Tommy has played two Majors in front of the home crowd and this will be his first Major event at one of the other three most significant tennis events after those two deep runs at Challengers.
Paul is a former Roland Garros junior champion from 2015 and he was one of the favorites at the eighth Wild Card Challenge that spread for four weeks and included every clay tournament on the ATP and Challenger level in the past four weeks. Ryan Harrison took the lead after earning 20 points in Houston and it was Paul who took charge after the second week, beating Tennys Sandgren in the final of Sarasota for the second Challenger crown in the last half a year. The mentioned players met again in the semi-final in Tallahassee last week and Paul won that one as well, opening a significant gap over Sandgren and securing the overall win when Federico Coria defeated Tennys in the third round in Savannah.
Brian Baker, Alex Kuznetsov, Robby Ginepri, Frances Tiafoe, Bjorn Fratangelo, Tennys Sandgren and Noah Rubin were the previous winners of this Challenge and Tommy will now have the opportunity to play in the main draw at Roland Garros for the first time, seeking his second ATP win on the slowest surface. Tommy currently works at the USTA National Campus in Orlando, Florida, and he should be a top-100 contender in the next 12 months if he keeps the current level.
from Tennis World USA http://bit.ly/2LhFyeL
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