{"id":415214,"date":"2026-01-17T11:35:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-17T11:35:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/415214\/"},"modified":"2026-01-17T11:35:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-17T11:35:09","slug":"tennis-late-bloomers-are-rare-one-american-at-the-australian-open-just-needed-injuries-to-stop","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/415214\/","title":{"rendered":"Tennis late-bloomers are rare. One American at the Australian Open just needed injuries to stop"},"content":{"rendered":"

And just like that, here comes another late-blooming tennis player<\/a> from College Station, Texas.<\/p>\n

In October 2025, Arthur Rinderknech<\/a>, a college player<\/a> for Texas A&M from 2013 to 2018, broke into the top 30 for the first time in his career, at 27.<\/p>\n

He did it by reaching the final of the Shanghai Masters<\/a>, where he lost to his cousin, Valentin Vacherot<\/a> of Monaco. Vacherot, who had followed Rinderknech to College Station, won the tournament a rung below the Grand Slams ranked world No. 204, beating 24-time Grand Slam champion Novak Djokovic<\/a> on his way to his first ATP Tour title at 26.<\/p>\n

Now comes 26-year-old Patrick Kypson, who spent just one semester at Texas A&M in 2018, but lived with Rinderknech and grew close with Vacherot as well. He\u2019s got a way to go to match them. But after years of injuries, Kypson recently showed some hints of form \u2014 and health.<\/p>\n

Last fall, while Rinderknech and Vacherot were on the way to their family final in Shanghai, Kypson was playing for a wild card entry into the main draw of the Australian Open.<\/p>\n

From the end of September until early November, he played five ATP Challenger Tour events. He made the final of three of them, winning two. He made the semifinals of another.<\/p>\n

In the process, he collected enough ranking points to beat out Martin Damm for the lone U.S. wild card to the year\u2019s first Grand Slam, awarded to the best performer in that time whose ranking is not high enough to get them in. The U.S. Tennis Association grants Tennis Australia a wild card for the U.S. Open, by way of thanks.<\/p>\n

Why the relative success now, after years of toiling?<\/p>\n

Kypson, whose first-round match saw him face Australin qualifier Jason Kubler, said it\u2019s mostly the result of being injury-free. But he\u2019s also trying to judge himself on process, rather than outcomes.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m just trying to take this mindset that I\u2019ve been working on for the last six months and judge myself on that, as opposed to winning and losing the match,\u201d he said during an interview in December.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf I can do that and execute on it well, then, ironically, I think that\u2019s the best.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

\n Patrick Kypson is another tennis player whose college years have come to define their career.<\/p>\n

These are the things one learns after a while in tennis. For a growing number of top pros, some of those lessons are taking place in college, which has become an increasingly popular pathway to the top 50 in recent years. Late-bloomers don\u2019t really exist at the top of the sport, and even further down, significant career changes rarely happen down the stretch.<\/p>\n

Kypson said he wanted to go to college, but only briefly. After winning the U.S. boys\u2019 national championship in Kalamazoo, Michigan, in 2017, and earning the wild card into the U.S. Open that comes with it, he was in a hurry to get on with his professional career. He signed up to spend the spring semester at Texas A&M in 2018 to get some final seasoning, and then planned to leave after the NCAA tournament.<\/p>\n

Steve Denton, the former pro and longtime coach at Texas A&M, wasn\u2019t so sure that was the best idea. During a recent interview, Denton said he told Kypson his tennis was good enough to win matches on the ATP Tour. Denton was more concerned about whether Kypson\u2019s teenage body could withstand its rigor.<\/p>\n

This concern is not specific to Kypson, who is now 6ft 2in and plenty strong. Many dominant college players find the physical transition to professional tennis more challenging than the tactical one.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of them are not physically mature enough to stay out there week after week after week,\u201d Denton said. \u201cThat is why some players take a little longer to break through. They figure how much to rest and train, and then they have a chance to make a run.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kypson, who grew up in Greenville, North Carolina, said he has no regrets about his decision to leave college so quickly, even though he might be the avatar of the phenomenon Denton described. Almost as soon as he left Texas A&M, he caught the injury bug.<\/p>\n

In January of 2019, after just six months as a professional, came the first in a series of stress fractures to his playing elbow, which made him miss most of that season. The Covid-19 pandemic knocked out 2020. In 2021, elbow surgery sidelined him for months.<\/p>\n

So he came back. He played. Too much too soon. A torn oblique muscle. Another couple months out.<\/p>\n

He then enjoyed about two years of decent health, qualifying for the 2023 French Open and the 2024 Australian Open. Then, a meniscus tear, during that year\u2019s Wimbledon qualifying. Kypson had surgery, but then rushed to get back in time to qualify for the U.S. Open, figuring that if Djokovic and Taylor Fritz could do it, why could\u2019t he?<\/p>\n

He has pain in that knee to this day.<\/p>\n

\u201cScar tissue. All the all the things that happen when you rush a joint that just had surgery into professional sport a little bit early,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Then, last year in Australia, he broke his left foot. A third surgery, and another three-and-a-half months on the sidelines.<\/p>\n

\u201cProbably the toughest injury of my career,\u201d Kypson said. His ranking tumbled to 455. The only thing to do was live and learn.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have the tendency to over-train, to push too hard,\u201d he said. \u201cI obviously can\u2019t give that direct correlation to injuries that I\u2019ve had, but it\u2019s certainly possible that there\u2019s things I\u2019ve done and hours I\u2019ve put in that maybe I shouldn\u2019t have, that contributed to the injuries.\u201d<\/p>\n

If Kypson can stay healthy, Denton swears he has a chance to have a legitimate career. He says Kypson has a high tennis IQ, great shot selection, a big forehand he uses effectively, good hands around the net, and an improving transition game.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s gotten more aggressive, tried to finish at the net more and gotten closer to the baseline, he said. \u201cThere are tactical things he\u2019s trying, like trying to play a bit more aggressive on the bigger points.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kypson thinks his current game can maintain a ranking of about 150, but that\u2019s not where, or who, he wants to be.<\/p>\n

\u201cPlay on my own terms as opposed to sitting back and waiting for things to come to you,\u201d is how he put it.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe game has gotten faster and everyone\u2019s hitting the ball really well. It doesn\u2019t just come to you if you wait for it anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"And just like that, here comes another late-blooming tennis player from College Station, Texas. In October 2025, Arthur…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":415215,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[442],"tags":[49,48,82,593],"class_list":["post-415214","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/415214","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=415214"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/415214\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/415215"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=415214"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=415214"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=415214"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}