Tommy Paul earns French Open wild card

Tommy Paul won the French Open boys’ singles title in 2015. Four years later, armed with a career-high ATP ranking of No. 143, he will get his first crack at the Roland Garros main draw.

The 21-year-old American clinched a wild-card entry into the year’s second major by winning the USTA’s Roland Garros Wild Card Challenge, a four-week contest based on results at various clay-court singles events. After backing up his singles title at the ATP Challenger 100 event in Sarasota, Fla., with a final run at the Challenger 80 event in Tallahassee, Fla., last week, Paul established a healthy lead entering the final week of the competition.

With second-place Tennys Sandgren’s third-round loss to Federico Coria on Thursday, at the Challenger 80 event in Savannah, Ga., Paul’s finish atop the standings was confirmed.

The New Jersey native’s Sarasota title came in just his second tournament back after a quad injury. In a championship match that went a long way toward sealing his French Open main-draw berth, he topped Sandgren, 6-3, 6-4, saving 15 out of 15 break points on the green clay.

The Top 2 finishers squared off again the following week, in the Tallahassee semifinals, where Paul again edged his compatriot in straight sets. 

Raised in Greenville, N.C., and now living in Orlando, Fla., and training at the USTA National Campus, Paul won the 2015 French Open boys' singles title over fellow American Taylor Fritz, becoming only the second American boy to win the Roland Garros junior singles title since John McEnroe in 1977, after Bjorn Fratangelo won it in 2011. Paul's only professional appearance at the French Open to date came in the 2016 qualifying rounds, when he came two wins short of qualifying for the main draw.

In the women’s Challenge, 17-year-old Whitney Osuigwe has the lead midway through Week 3 of the four-week women’s window, thanks in large part to her title run at the ITF World Tennis Tour W80 event in Charlottesville, Va., last week.

Full details on the USTA Wild Card Challenge can be found on our information page.