Earlier this year, weeks before Denis Kudla was preparing to play Dusan Lajovic in the first round of Roland Garros, the American was sliding on Har-Tru, trying to find his footing at ATP Challenger tournaments.
Kudla has been ranked inside the Top 100 Emirates ATP Rankings for almost a year now, since last July. But the 23 year old still finds ATP Challenger tournaments worth his time and commitment. At Challenger events, Kudla said, players of all rankings can try to string together a few nice wins and gain some much-needed confidence. With that self-belief, he said, most players can have a chance of beating almost anyone in the world.
“There’s so many good players here,” Kudla said in Savannah. “No matter what tournament you’re playing, what level you’re at, if you have confidence, you can pretty much play with anybody.”
Kudla played in two ATP Challenger events on Har-Tru earlier this year, the Sarasota Challenger and the Savannah Challenger. The Ukrainian-born American enjoyed varied results. In Sarasota, Kudla was the top seed but fell to then-World No. 190 Noah Rubin 7-5, 2-6, 7-6(8).
“The Challengers haven’t been so great for me this year,” Kudla said before starting in Savannah.
But he became more comfortable on the crushed stone. In Savannah, Kudla won his first-round match by coming back from a set down to beat clay-court veteran Giovanni Lapentti of Ecuador. In the second round, Kudla dismissed Brian Baker, a former World No. 52 who’s making another comeback from injuries.
Kudla then dispatched Nicolas Jarry but lost in the semi-finals to Bjorn Fratangelo, who would later win the USTA Pro Circuit Roland Garros Wild Card Challenge and gain direct entry into Roland Garros.
This week will mark Kudla’s fourth time playing in Paris but only his second in the main draw. (He lost to Jan Hajek in the first round in 2013.) Kudla is hoping his recent success on the Challenger Tour helps his play at upcoming tour-level events, much like it did last year during a career breakthrough.
It was early June, and the right-hander had just finished up the clay-court season with disappointing results. Kudla failed to win a round at qualifying at Roland Garros and was 2-6 during tour-level play for the season. His ranking also had dropped 16 places since the start of the year to No. 139. “I wasn’t in a great place,” Kudla said.
With his new coach, Billy Heiser, Kudla headed to grass-court ATP Challengers to jumpstart his season. At the Surbiton Challenger, Kudla strung together four wins to make the final before falling to Matthew Ebden of Australia in a third-set tie-break. The next week, at the Illkley Challenger, Kudla won four more matches and then beat Ebden 6-3, 6-4 to capture his fifth ATP Challenger title.
That success led him to bigger things at tour-level events. He posted a career-best showing at a Grand Slam by reaching the fourth round at Wimbledon. His All-England Club run featured wins over then-World No. 23 Pablo Cuevas, #NextGen star Alexander Zverev and then-World No. 60 Santiago Giraldo of Colombia. In the fourth round, Kudla grabbed a set from then-World No. 9 Marin Cilic before falling in four sets.
Later that year, Kudla earned his best showing at a tour-level event by making the semi-finals of the BB&T Atlanta Open. “I was in a new mindset, just trying to stay positive,” Kudla said. “Everything just kind of came together in a really short period of time, which is not easy to do. But I took advantage of it and I kept going. I felt like it was one of the first times in my career where I played really well for a long period of time.”
With more Challenger success behind him, Kudla will try to start another impressive run this week at Roland Garros.
