Less than two weeks after deciding to forgo college eligibility at the University of Georgia and commit himself full-time to the ATP Tour, 18-year-old Alex Michelsen was awarded a wild card into the Winston-Salem Open.
“Every week is just another week. You have to appreciate it and enjoy the process. I’m trying to take it all in stride, but I’m learning a lot about what it takes to play at the top,” the California teen said in a phone interview Thursday night.
Michelsen is no stranger to Winston-Salem. He closed his 2022 season playing at the Wake Forest Indoor Tennis center in an International Tennis Federation (ITF) event. The ITF is the lowest level of professional tennis competition, and Michelsen made a run to the finals.
“I love North Carolina. It’s nice and green. Wake Forest’s campus was beautiful, and so was the facility. Of course, I did well in that tournament, so maybe that’s part of why I enjoyed it so much,” Michelsen added with humor.
The teen’s rise didn’t exactly come overnight, but he has jumped about 900 spots in the Pepperstone ATP rankings in just 12 months. The American began August of 2022 ranked 1,043. He began this August sitting at 134. Michelsen is currently ranked 138 in the world and is the youngest American man to reach an ATP Tour final, since Taylor Fritz in 2016, when he did so earlier this summer in Newport at the Infosys Hall of Fame Open.
“It’s one of those great things about tennis – when we can offer wild card to a promising young talent. We have been keeping our eye on Alex all summer, and we are excited he will return to Winston-Salem. Our fans, we think, are going to fall in love with him,” Jeff Ryan, Winston-Salem Open tournament director said.
The U.S. Open has also offered Michelsen a wild card into the main draw of its singles competition, and he is currently on pace to compete in the ATP NextGen finals at the year of the year. The NextGen tournament is for top players 21 and younger.
