Another young American has found some success recently. Winning his second title of the year at the Tallahasee Tennis Challenger, Noah Rubin has officially qualified for a wild card to the French Open. Matt Stachowiak breaks down Rubin’s major achievement and projects how he might do in his Roland Garros debut.

Noah Rubin, the 22 year-old from Long Island, New York, is set to make his French Open debut later this month. Thanks to his first career clay court title at the Tallahassee Tennis Challenger last week, Rubin put in enough work to earn first place in the USTA’s Wild Card Challenge. The New York native ended up running away with the four-week contest, beating out a couple of peers in Reilly Opelka and Bjorn Fratangelo.

Tennis fans may forget that Rubin was sidelined for much of 2017 with a serious wrist injury. This year he has returned to the tour with a vengeance. He has worked his way back to the top-200 in the world. With a 14-5 record on the ATP Challenger Tour in 2018, Noah currently sits at #196 in the rankings.

By defeating Marc Polmans in a thrilling final at the Tallahassee Challenger, Rubin was able to seize his second title of the year, and now possesses crowns on both hard and clay in 2018. It seems like he might be peaking at the perfect time, because Roland Garros is only a few weeks away.

Rubin will be able to draw upon his previous Grand Slam experiences at the US Open and the Australian Open as he makes his way to Paris. The former Wake Forest Demon Deacon knows what it takes to win at the Grand Slam level. In 2016 and 2017 he won first-round matches in Australia. I believe Rubin’s game can translate extremely well to the red clay at Roland Garros.He moves so well on the court and is always willing to play long, grinding points if necessary. It’ll be more difficult for bigger, stronger players to hit him off the court at the French like they might on a hard or grass court. This should serve Noah well.

Knowing how great of a competitor Rubin is, I think we can be fairly certain that he’ll do everything he can to capitalize on his wild card. It’s a perfect opportunity for the young American to continue climbing the rankings. Will this be the year that Rubin surpasses his career-high ranking of #161 in the world?

With the way he’s playing at the moment, it wouldn’t be a surprise to me. Make sure to stay tuned and follow all of the Americans who will be in action at Roland Garros later this month. The main-draw is scheduled to begin play on May 21st.

Want to learn more about Noah Rbuin? He was recently featured on the Cracked Interviews Podcast, and the Cracked Racquets team also did an extensive break down of his game.