19 year old American Zachary Svajda had to earn his first ATP Challenger title the hard way.
The somewhat forgotten former junior prodigy has struggled the last couple of years to make the big jump up the rankings and keep up with Nakashima, Brooksby and Korda but last week in Tiburon, Svajda won five close, pressure cooker matches.
In the first round the La Jolla native coached by David Nainkin beat August Holmgren 46 63 76 (5). In the second round he survived Michael Mmoh 63 57 76 (4).
In the quarterfinals Svajda defeated Ernesto Escobedo 63 76 (3).
In the semi he beat Alexis Galarneau 64 64.
So that’s four straight tough matches and ten straight tight sets.
The final would be another thriller, as Svajda beat the red hot 177th ranked Ben Shelton 26 62 64.
With the big week Svajda saw his ranking rise from 379 to 255.
Svajda first became known at age 15 when he earned his first ATP ranking points in 2018. At 16 he trained with Roger Federer at Indian Wells 2019. Later that year, still 16 as a wildcard at the 2019 US Open (for winning the Boys 18s title at Kalamazoo), Svajda lead veteran Paolo Lorenzi by two sets but eventually lost in five.
Though Svajda lost this week first round to world no. 544 Holmgren 63 16 06 at Fairfield (CA) Challenger, most likely due to fatigue from last week’s heroics, it would appear Svajda is ready to rumble on the ATP World Tour like his young American peers.
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