To some players, facing seven match points would be a daunting task. Tim van Rijthoven, however, has confronted much worse.

The Dutchman, who saved seven match points on Monday and rallied from two sets down to stun Zhang Zhizhen at the US Open, is enjoying the best year of his career. But it has been far from easy for the 25-year-old to get to this point.

Going through the list of injuries van Rijthoven has suffered since turning pro in 2015 takes almost as long as an interview itself.

“When I was 18, I had a golfer’s elbow. It hurt when I was hitting serves, forehand volleys and smashes, so I couldn’t play a match,” van Rijthoven said. “It took me about a year to recover from that and that was my first year as a pro.”

Once van Rijthoven returned to the court, he was able to compete for a year and a half, but his elbow still hurt “a lot”. At the end of the year, he fell on his wrist and needed surgery. That was another eight months out.

Again, the Dutchman was able to return to competition for a year, but then hurt both his groins and was unable to move to his left or right. Each time van Rijthoven recovered physically, but he was never able to find his rhythm on the court. In February 2020, he underwent vein surgery on his right arm to deal with thrombosis, which occurs when a blood clot causes a blockage.

“I’ve had moments when I’ve thought about quitting the sport altogether and just going back to studying,” van Rijthoven said. “Definitely not easy.”

It was tough for him to imagine a life without tennis. Van Rijthoven began golfing when he was very young, holding a club at the age of two. But tennis was in his blood.

“I think my first lessons were at five, six years old,” van Rijthoven said. “My parents were both tennis teachers, so it was only normal for me to play tennis.

“Both my parents were in that life, so it kind of became my life. I never thought of it as really my job, but just part of my life.”

Sometimes it became hard for him to differentiate between his professional career and his personal life. His family and friends, especially his girlfriend, urged him to continue working hard and eventually the effort would reap rewards. According to van Rijthoven, his biggest improvement came in his mind.

“For me it was really just turning a switch on in my head,” he said.

It all paid off for van Rijthoven earlier this year during the grass-court season. In front of his home fans at ‘s-Hertogenbosch, the Dutchman lifted the trophy as a wild card ranked World No. 205.

In the final, he upset then-World No. 2 Daniil Medvedev to become the first man to defeat a World No. 1 or No. 2 in his first ATP Tour final in the Tour’s history (since 1990). Van Rijthoven backed it up by advancing to the fourth round at Wimbledon as a wild card on his Grand Slam debut. In the Round of 16, he tested eventual champion Novak Djokovic before losing to the Serbian in four sets.

^{Photo Credit: Libema Open}
Van Rijthoven did not let the success of the moment get to his head, though. Although he recognised “how precious those matches were”, he said he “definitely [had] both feet on the ground”.

Just weeks later, van Rijthoven went from the highest of highs to the lowest of lows. At No. 101 in the Pepperstone ATP Rankings, one place from checking off his major goal of cracking the Top 100, injury struck again. The Dutchman was hitting a serve at an ATP Challenger Tour event when he strained his back. “I couldn’t really move either side and was just stuck in one position,” van Rijthoven said.

“I thought about ‘Not again’, yeah. I also feel like whenever I feel a small pain coming up, I’m very careful, so I want to get a picture taken of it and everything and just know what it is, because I’ve had all those injuries before.”

Van Rijthoven did not play a tournament between that moment and the US Open. He seemed destined for a first-round exit when he trailed Zhang by two sets and 1/5 in the third-set tie-break. But like he has throughout his career, the Dutchman persevered.

With the World No. 117’s sights set on the Top 100 — a mark he is projected to eclipse with an upset win in the second round against Casper Ruud — van Rijthoven is ready to continue his surge.

“That’s one of the big goals for me and I was 101,” van Rijthoven said. “That really hurts to be 101 and finish the career 101, so I don’t want to finish 101.”

Cameron Norrie wasted no time bringing his impressive 2022 form to the US Open on Tuesday, when the sixth seed raced past Benoit Paire 6-0, 7-6(1), 6-0 to reach the second round in New York in style.

Norrie claimed the first and third sets of his second tour-level meeting with Paire in just 18 minutes and 15 minutes, respectively, as his consistency overwhelmed his opponent. He also held firm in a far tighter second set during which former World No. 18 Paire let slip the opportunity to level the first-round match when serving at 5-3.

Norrie fired 24 winners, including nine aces, to capitalise on a wayward performance by Paire, who reached the fourth round in New York in 2015. The win represented a comprehensive start for the Briton as he seeks to back up his run to his maiden Grand Slam semi-final at Wimbledon in July.

The 27-year-old Norrie has pedigree on American hard courts. The former Texas Christian University Horned Frog lifted his maiden ATP Masters 1000 trophy in Indian Wells in 2021 and also claimed the title in Delray Beach in February. Alongside his Wimbledon run, those triumphs have headlined a stellar 2022 for the Briton, who improved his season-record to 42-19 with Tuesday’s win.

Norrie will next face Joao Sousa or Mackenzie McDonald as he seeks to equal his best performance in New York, a third-round appearance in 2020. A deep run at Flushing Meadows would also boost his chances of qualifying for the Nitto ATP Finals for the second time — Norrie currently sits 11th in the Pepperstone ATP Live Race To Turin.

Rinky Hijikata had just landed in New York Thursday when the messages started lighting up his phone.

“The first one was from my manager, Kelly [Wolf], and she said something along the lines of ‘Welcome to the Big House!’” Hijikata told ATPTour.com. “There was no real context, so I really didn’t know what she was talking about. I thought maybe she was saying ‘Welcome to New York’.

“I got a few others like ‘I can’t believe your draw!’ so that’s when I went and had a look. Pretty exciting.”

When he called up the US Open draw he found his name on Line 127, one above second seed and 22-time Grand Slam champion Rafael Nadal. The context was no longer lacking.

Hijikata could not have asked for a more illustrious opponent for his Grand Slam main draw debut, and the 21-year-old wild card eagerly awaits the moment when he steps on court alongside Nadal in New York on Tuesday.

“It’s not often you get to play a player of that calibre and I’m definitely pumped,” said Hijikata. “I can’t wait to go out there and give it my best shot.

“It’s always been a dream of mine to go out there on the biggest stages of tennis and try to have a big crack at players like that. I’m excited for the contest, I’m excited for the challenge. I want to go out there and represent everyone and try and give it my best shot.”

It is not the first time this season Hijikata has been thrown in at the deep end. In Los Cabos earlier this month, his reward for notching his maiden ATP Tour win was a second-round clash against World No. 1 Daniil Medvedev. The Australian was not overawed by the occasion despite falling to a 6-4, 6-3 defeat in Mexico, and he believes that experience will help him as he plots an upset against the four-time champion Nadal in New York.

“That was probably one of the biggest matches I’ve ever played,” said Hijikata. “That was a great experience for me, I think I learned a lot from that. The atmosphere and everything was a bit different than anything I’ve ever played in. Hopefully that will help me in good stead for what’s coming on Tuesday.

“I guess all the good players have a bit of an aura around them maybe and once you step out on-court, you don’t really know what to expect the first time. So, I went in a little clueless, but this time around hopefully I can settle the nerves a bit quicker.”

Born in Sydney after his parents emigrated from Japan, Hijikata grew up watching arguably the greatest generation of players the ATP Tour has ever seen. Yet while the likes of Nadal, Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic were obvious inspirations for the 21-year-old, it was a legendary home favourite who had him most captivated as a youngster.

“I think ‘Rusty’ (Lleyton Hewitt) was the guy I loved watching the most,” said Hijikata. “He’s an Aussie and the way he competed on the court, I thought was pretty cool.

“Then as I got a little bit older, I think Rafa and Roger when they had their big rivalry going that was pretty special. That was hard to beat, playing each other pretty much every Slam and the quality of their tennis was out of this world. Those two of mine have been idols of mine growing up and then obviously Novak as well, a bit more recently has been on a tear.”

Hijikata has so far trodden a slightly different path to those ATP Tour greats. He played two seasons in college tennis for the University of North Carolina before turning pro in 2021, but the Australian only ever had one final destination in mind.

“I definitely went over with the intentions of playing tennis after,” said Hijikata. “That was always my goal. That was one of my main reasons I chose North Carolina, I thought it would give me the best platform to get better and grow as a player and a person and hopefully hold me in good stead for the Tour and I think that’s exactly what it did. Those two years definitely helped me a lot.”

After qualifying for his first ATP Tour appearance at the ATP 250 event in Melbourne in January, Hijikata has worked his way up to his current career-high of No. 198 in the Pepperstone ATP Rankings thanks to some strong performances at ATP Challenger Tour and Futures level. His next mission is to add greater consistency to his game.

“I think it’s been a little bit of an up-and-down season,” said Hijikata. “It’s my first full year on Tour so there’s a lot of learning that I’ve got to do, I think that’s been the story of the year.

“There’s been some really good patches and then there’s been some patches where I’ve been struggling a bit, but I guess that’s kind of life on Tour, you’re not going to be able to win and play well every week so it’s kind of just dealing with the losses and dealing with the weeks where you aren’t doing so well.

“I think that’s been one of the main things I’ve learned this year; not every week is going to be pretty, if you string a few good weeks together then it ends up being a pretty good year.”

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There may be plenty of lessons left to learn, but Hijikata has no shortage of role models to learn from as he finds his way on Tour. Fellow Australian John Millman in particular has been a source of sage advice for the youngster.

“He’s always been a big one,” said Hijikata of World No. 104 Millman. “He came and chatted when we were on the Junior Davis Cup team and he just said that you’re never going to be able to play at a level if you don’t believe that you belong there.

“That’s something that I’ve taken to heart, and I guess every level that I step up, I try to back the work you’ve put in and all the hard work you’ve done in your training. Hope that puts you in good stead and have the belief that you deserve your spot here and you do deserve to be there. I think it’s easy to get swept away with guys’ rankings, their achievements. Stepping up levels, it can be tough.”

Relatively straightforward yet effective advice from Millman, and Hijikata is taking the same approach as he prepares for the biggest match of his career against Nadal. “Try not to drop anything too short and in the middle of the court,” said the Australian of his gameplan for taking on the second seed. “That’s a good start.”