Long Island's Jack Kennedy gets wild card into U.S. Open qualifying tournament

Huntington's  Jack Kennedy was awarded a wild card into the U.S. Open men's qualifying singles tournament, the USTA announced Wednesday.

The 128-player qualifying tournament will be played from Monday through Thursday of next week at the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center. The 16 men who win three straight matches will gain entry into the tournament’s main draw.

“Hopefully, I’ll do some damage,” said Kennedy, 17, who was ranked as high as fifth in the world as a junior this year and will play for the University of Virginia this fall.

The USTA announced nine qualifying wild cards, including one for Columbia University’s Michael Zheng, 21, the reigning NCAA men’s singles champion and the runner-up at the American Collegiate Wild Card Playoff. Main draw wild cards announced Wednesday include Brandon Holt, Nishesh Basavareddy, Tristan Boyer, Emilio Nava, Stefan Dostanic and Darwin Blanch.

The qualifying tournament generally attracts players whose ATP rankings are close to the cutoff for main draw entry, which was 101 for men this year. The pre-tournament tournament, free to fans, drove what the USTA said was a record-breaking 216,029 attendance for the Open’s Fan Week in 2024.

Kennedy also played the event last year, losing to tour veteran Maximilian Marterer in the first round in straight sets before a rooting crowd on Court 11, one of the outer show courts.

That experience, score line aside, was “a dream come true,” Kennedy said. “Playing against one of the most experienced guys on tour, walking out onto Court 11, seeing the stands full of people, faces I recognized . . . For any kid from New York who’s dreamed of playing tennis at the highest level, it’s what we work for.”

Kennedy, who trains at Robbie Wagner Tournament Training Center in Glen Cove, as well as the USTA’s national campus in Orlando, Florida, will return to the Open after a year of practice with local partners, including Princeton-bound Jordan Reznik, and top Americans, including Ben Shelton and Jenson Brooksby. Playing with the pros allowed him to “see the level, what we are aiming for and what we are going to be competing for in the next couple years.”

He added more gym time to his routine to allow him to play “longer points, longer matches with the older guys who are used to it,” and an improved serve he hopes will be potent enough to win free points. “The serve has been one of my biggest goals since the last Open,” he said. “We were focusing a lot on hitting spots,” but he’s also hitting harder, he said. A year ago, his serve typically clocked 105-110 miles per hour; it’s now 115-120 miles per hour and has been clocked as fast as 125 miles per hour, he said.

Kennedy reached the third round of junior events this year at the French Open and Wimbledon and is coming off a semifinal run last week at the USTA Boys National Championships in Kalamazoo, Michigan. The U.S. Open qualifying draw will likely be released Sunday, a spokesman for the organization said Wednesday.

Kennedy will earn $27,500 for his first-round qualifying match, and tens of thousands more for subsequent rounds. The sums climb steeply in the main draw in what USTA says is the largest purse in tennis history, with even a first-round singles appearance earning $110,000. Kennedy is unlikely to see much of those riches, since NCAA rules limit a tennis player before full-time college enrollment to $10,000 per calendar year in prize money, with any additional prize money eligible on a per-event basis and limited to covering expenses for the event.