Darwin Blanch deserves a US Open Wild Card with Kalamazoo victory … Two years after taking one! – World tennis magazine

By Randy Walker

@TenniisPublisher

Two years after refusing a US Open Wi; D -card Because he didn’t feel he deserved it, Darwin Blanch has rightly earned a US Open Wild Card.

Blanch, the 17-year-old from Boca Raton, Florida, won the 18S championships of the USTA National Boy in Kalamazoo, Michigan Die Jack Sateterfield from Tampa, Florida 6-3, 4-6, 6-4, 6-4. The winner of this USTA National Championship Traditional deserves a US Open Main Draw Wild Card.

In 2023, BLanch, then 15 years old, lost in the boy’s 18s event, but the development of the USTA player was so high in his potential that they awarded him a wildcard to the US Open Qualifying Event, which is normally awarded to the second place of the event, not a losing quarter-finalist. After the Wildcard was publicly announced in a press release, Blanch, reportedly pushed by his coaches and mentors, including former world no. 1 Juan Carlos Ferrero, experienced the Wild Card with this team in the conviction that he was not yet ready to compete at that high level of tennis.

After his open reversal of the US, Blanch received two high-profile wildcards in the Miami Open and the Madrid Open where he lost in the first round to Tomas Machac and, famous, to Rafael Nadal in Madrid with a 6-1, 6-0 margin. Since then, Blanch has mainly played in futures and challengers events and is number 404 on the ATP computer.

In February 2022, Blanch actually made a tennis history when he became the second youngest player to earn an ATP order point when he beat Gerald Planelles in the first round of the ITF World Tennis Tour “Futures” level tournament in Villena, Spain. After 14 years and five months he was two months older than the Spaniard Nicolás Álvarez Varona (14 years and three months) when he scored an ATP point in 2015. He won the USTA National Boys championships later in the year.

Blanch Trains in the Juan Carlos Ferrero Academy in Alicante, Spain and often practices with French, Wimbledon and the American open champion Carlos Alcaraz.