Toby Samuel says he is now focused on reaching the top 100 of the men’s tennis rankings after making his Grand Slam debuts at Roland Garros and Wimbledon.<\/p>\n
Winchester-born Samuel came through three rounds of qualifying at the French Open, before losing to world number eight Alex de Minaur in the first round.<\/p>\n
The 23-year-old, now based in Bath, was handed a Wimbledon wildcard before taking Czech 15th seed and French Open semi-finalist Jakub Mensik to five sets.<\/p>\n
“It was an unbelievable experience,” Samuel told BBC Points West. <\/p>\n
“Getting to play on that court with a player as good as Jacob. I pushed him all the way to a fifth set tie-break, my first ever five-set match. <\/p>\n
“Trying to break into the top 100 is my next goal, and reaching Grand Slam main draws on my own is the next goal for me.”<\/p>\n
Samuel was ranked outside the top 1,000 at the beginning of 2025, but arrived at SW19 at a career-high ranking of 123 after reaching the Eastbourne semi-finals last week.<\/p>\n
He takes home \u00a380,000 after going out in the first round at Wimbledon, to go alongside \u00a334,995 from Eastbourne, and over \u00a375,000 from his run at Roland Garros.<\/p>\n
He knows money and points are vital for his rise up the rankings, but says you cannot buy the experience he will get from matches like the Mensik defeat.<\/p>\n
“It was very tough mentally and physically. You have to stay focused and compete for such a long time,” Samuel added.<\/p>\n
“It’s draining, but I’m glad to have done it for the first time, and I know that I can do, and I can get through them so hopefully in the future the next one I have I can try and win.<\/p>\n
“There are a lot of key things to take away from it, and also improve, and be happy with how I did. It’s really given me the confidence to move forward and know that I can play at this level.”<\/p>\n
Samuel will now head to Canada for some Challenger events, and then go to the USA for a number of ATP and Challenger tournaments ahead of targeting the US Open at the end of August.<\/p>\n
“Hard (court) is my favourite surface typically, it’s where I’ve had my best results,” he added.<\/p>\n
“With a top 100ish (seeding) you can get main draw, I’m not far off so I’m hoping over the next month or so I can really push for that.<\/p>\n
“I’m not used to all this, it’s my first time for a lot of these things. It’s about experiencing them a few times, and getting more used to it and comfortable, and the wins will come eventually.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Toby Samuel says he is now focused on reaching the top 100 of the men’s tennis rankings after…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":775960,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[442],"tags":[49,48,82,593],"class_list":["post-775959","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\/775959","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=775959"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/775959\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/775960"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=775959"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=775959"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=775959"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}