With so many young Americans on the tour, there are plenty of names that would be expected to fill the long-standing wildcard agreement between the USTA and the Australian Tennis Federation. Taylor Fritz, Francis Tiafoe, Jared Donaldson, Tommy Paul, and Bjorn Fratangelo are all names now becoming known. But the recipient of the wildcard, though a teenager like many of the above names save for Fratangelo, was a little under the radar.
Noah Rubin had a successful junior career, defeating Stefan Kozlov for the 2014 Wimbledon Juniors Singles title, but then opted for a year a Wake Forest University at a time when many of his young compatriots and competitors were already making headway on the pro circuit.
Rubin left Wake Forest after just a year to pursue the same goal, and almost immediately found success by winning the Charlottesville Challenger, winning in his first Challenger final appearance despite being a set and two breaks down against Tommy Paul. Due to the lack of another American winner in the other two events that counted towards the Wildcard Challenge, Rubin won the chance to take part in the main draw of the 2016 Australian Open. This is fortunate, as his current ranking of 337 would be insufficient to even gain access to the Qualifying Draw otherwise. However, he is in the main draw on merit, and due to his time taken at University, his lack of tournament appearances means he is quite literally a wildcard.
Samantha Crawford is the recipient of the Women’s wildcard, as she also garnered the most points in the three week spell that counted towards the Wildcard Challenge.
This is the second year that the US wildcard has been decided by a Wildcard Challenge, after previous years had seen a knock-out tournament that saw eight players fight for the wildcard.
Rubin joins James Duckworth, Quentin Halys, Lleyton Hewitt, and Yoshihito Nishioka as recipients of wildcards so far. Three more are due to be awarded with Marinko Matosevic a possible candidate for one.
Crawford joins Oceane Dodin, Han Xinyun, Priscilla Hon, Maddison Inglis, and Tammi Patterson, with two more wildcards set to be awarded for the Women’s event.
