Kuhn and Kecmanovic: Introducing the Special Ks of 21st century tennis

Nicola Kuhn....with Miomir Kecmanovic a future Special K of men's tennis

 Tennis superkid Nicola Kuhn has taken two more giant steps towards his target of reaching the world's top 200 by the end of this year.

The Spanish teenager, who has opted out of the ITF junior circuit in order to boost his assault on vital ATP ranking points, pulled out of junior Wimbledon after reaching both boys' finals at the French Open last month.

Instead, he launched a double assault on the world's experienced pros - beating a string of older players in reaching the semi-finals of both the Belgian F1 and German F5 Futures events.
Kuhn, 17, was left cursing his luck at Kamen in Germany when heavy rain turned the clay courts into a dirty mud surface during the later stages of the competition. And despite a courageous fightback, he was finally beaten in three sets by eventual winner Alexander Vasilenko of Russia.
The six points Kuhn receives for reaching the last four in Germany should lift him to around 480 in the world when the next ATP ranking list is announced next Monday. He moved up to 501 on the strength of reaching the semi-final at Havre in Belgium, where he bowed out against the world's No.1 junior Miomir Kecmanovic, despite romping away with the first set 6-1.
Kecmanovic and Kuhn, who is five months younger than the Serbian, are rapidly establishing one of the game's most intriguing rivalries, each having won two of their four encounters - all of them exciting three-set marathons.

Kecmanovic...world's top junior

Perhaps the most exciting of all their matches was the junior French Open semi-final, where Kuhn triumphed 7-6, 2-6, 7-6 after an exhausting nailbiter at Roland Garros. 

Ironically, that Paris confrontation was probably the final junior tournament for both the Special K's, whose focus is now firmly on a place in the prestigious Next Generation finals at the end of 2018.

HEAD TO HEAD. Miomir Kecmanovic (born Belgrade, Aug 17 1999) v Nicola Kuhn (born Innsbruck, March 20 2000))

2015: Osaka Mayor's Cup - World Super Junior Tennis (hard) Winner KUHN 2-6 6-4 6-3.

2016: Junior US Open quarter final (hard): Winner: KECMANOVIC 6-2 5-7 6-4.

2017: Junior French Open semi final (clay): Winner KUHN 7-6 (5) 2-6 7-6 (4).

2017: Belgium F1 Futures (Havre) semi final (clay): Winner KECMANOVIC 1-6 6-3 6-1.

Weary champ Kuhn pulls out of Wimbledon in quest for pro tennis glory

Nicola Kuhn: The junior French Open doubles champion has pulled out of Wimbledon

Weary tennis champion Nicola Kuhn has played his last match as a junior after making both the singles and doubles finals at the French Open last week.

The Spanish whizkid and doubles partner Zsombor Piros were crowned junior champions at Roland Garros after a convincing 6-4 6-4 victory over US pair Danny Thomas and Vasil Kirkov in the final.

Three hours earlier, exhausted Nico missed out on the coveted singles crown, losing 7-6 6-3 to lanky Australian Alexei Popyrin after coming through a near-impossible three-match playing schedule the previous day.

Ironically, Torrevieja's blond  belter became a victim of his own success after storming into both finals on Friday, during which he dispatched the top seed, world number one Miomir Kecmanovic in a nailbiting singles semi-final.

And this week Nico announced that he was withdrawing from next month's junior Wimbledon, at which he would have been among the top seeds.

The build-up at Roland Garros reached its peak last Friday, when Kuhn inflicted a rare defeat on Kecmanovic, then teamed up with Piros to plough through two tough doubles matches and set up a Saturday showdown with Thomas and Kirkov.

Austrian-born Kuhn, whose colourful background embraces a German father, Russian mother and Spanish residency since he was three months old, went into Saturday's matches on the back of nine straight wins over the previous five days. But after effectively playing EIGHT sets of pressure tennis on Friday, something had to give.

The crunch came in his singles showdown on Saturday morning with the lanky Popyrin, whose route to the final had been eased by an early exit from the doubles and a relatively easy singles semi-final against Spain's Alejandro Davidovich Fokina.
Ironically, Kuhn might well have won the singles crown had he accepted an offer from Piros to ease his playing burden by withdrawing the partnership from the doubles.

Nico had been urged by his family not to take on the enormous task of competing for both the singles and doubles titles. And as his schedule began to get out of hand, Piros – who had already been knocked out of the singles - offered to abandon his own progress by withdrawing the partnership from the doubles.

Kuhn, who was 17 in March,  will be eligible to play at junior level until the end of 2019 but says he will no longer compete  in 18-and-under tournaments after pulling out of next month's junior Wimbledon in the wake of his Paris exertions.

He would have been among the top seeds for the junior singles title at Wimbledon but the lure of full-time professionalism and stronger opponents has not surprisingly won the day.

"No more junior tennis for me,'' he joked in an email to me this week. "It is all work and no pay and I am done with it!''

Kuhn and his back-up team, headed by coach Pedro Caprotta, will now focus all their attention on the men's circuit and maximising Nico's assault on the ATP rankings. 

He is currently listed 521 in the world behind No.1 Andy Murray and has targeted a place in the top 200 by the end of the year, which could well make him the highest ranked 17 year old on the planet.

New York beware! Tennis superkid Nico is on a US Open mission

FRIENDS IN HIGH PLACES: Nicola Kuhn (centre) with tennis legend John McEnroe at Wimbledon in July. Also pictured are men's singles finalist Milos Raonic (second right), Nico's coach Fran Martinez (extreme left) and Raonic's coach Carlos Moya, himself a former world No.1 

EUROPEAN tennis wonderkid Nicola Kuhn is on the verge of the big-time after leaping more than 400 places up the ATP men's world rankings  in just two weeks.

And the 16-year-old Spanish sensation's stunning form comes at the ideal time with the junior United States Open scheduled to begin at Flushing Meadows this weekend. .

Nico, his country's top-ranked junior and ranked No.17 in the world at 18-and-under level, headed for the States brimming with confidence. "I am very happy with my form,'' insisted the star pupil of former world No.1 Juan Carlos Ferrero's Equilite Academy in Villena.

"Last year's US Open was my first Grand Slam experience and I learnt a lot from it. I'll be spending much of my time working on my game and my fitness - and I am confident I can do well.''

Multi-lingual Nico, whose international pedigree includes Spanish, Austrian, German, Russian and even British connections, had to play through three qualifying rounds last year and went out in the first round of the main competition. This time, he goes straight into the main draw seeded as a genuine contender for the title - an achievement that would make him one of the youngest players to win a junior Grand Slam. 

In his first taste of the  senior ATP Challenger circuit, the blond six-footer celebrated his wild card entry by beating world No.320 Juan Pablo Paz of Argentina in the  first round at Meerbusch in Germany two weeks ago.

He followed that up by storming into the semi-final of last week's ITF Futures tournament in Santander. 

The seven ranking points that went with the Challenger victory lifted Nico to No.1015 behind the legendary Novak Djokovic - a jump of nearly 1,000 places since the beginning of the year. And the six points he amassed in Santander will lift him another 100-plus places when the next rankings list is published. .

Although he lost 6-2 6-3 at Meerbusch to eventual tournament winner Florian Mayer, the Kuhn kid was far from outclassed by a 32-year-old player who has beaten both Andy Murray and Rafel Nadal and has twice reached the Wimbledon quarter-finals.

Kid Kuhn in action at the Meeerbusch Challenger tournament

Top-seeded Mayer, once world No.18, dropped out of the top 100  after a succession of injuries. However, the German's recent form has been scintillating, and he has soared back to No.59 after a run of ten successive victories and back-to-back Challenger tournaments wins.

None of Mayer's subsequent opponents at Meerbusch did any better than Kuhn, who has targeted a place in the top 600 by the end of the year.

In his first taste of the  senior Challenger circuit, Spain’s top junior celebrated his wild card entry by beating world No.320 Juan Pablo Paz of Argentina in the  first round at Meerbusch in Germany.

The seven ranking points that went with the victory lifted Nico to No.1015 behind the legendary Novak Djokovic - a jump of nearly 1,000 places since the beginning of the year.

And although he lost 6-2 6-3 at Meerbusch to eventual tournament winner Florian Mayer, the young pretender was far from outclassed by a player twice his age, who has beaten both Andy Murray and Rafel Nadal in the past - and twice reached the Wimbledon quarter-finals.

Nico on his way to the junior French Open
semi final at Roland Garros earlier this year

NicTop-seeded Mayer, once ranked world No.18, dropped out of the top 100  after a succession of injuries. However, the German's recent form has been scintillating, and he has soared back to No.59 after a run of ten successive victories and back-to-back Challenger tournaments wins.

Nico said of  the Mayer experience: "It was a match with some opportunities. I broke him two or three times on his serve, but couldn't hold mine because I can't serve as hard as he does. I also made some mistakes and he also had some luck. 

"The second set was more open till 3-3, then he went a gear higher and I couldn't break him back. I feel I have the level, but I need to improve my fitness. He said I played good and I should continue like this.''

None of Mayer's subsequent opponents at Meerbusch did any better than Kuhn, who has targeted a place in the ATP top 600 by the end of the year. 

Kid Kuhn, whose dad is German and mother Russian, was born in Austria three months before his parents moved to the Costa Blanca and settled in a predominantly British expat community in the Costa Blanca holiday resort of Torrevieja.

With a multi-national background like that, Nico could open up a whole new world of fame if all goes well in New York. 

  3 Attached Images

Spain and able! Tennis champ Kuhn heads for top of the world

TENNIS tug-o'-war kid Nicola Kuhn celebrated his official switch to Spanish citizenship by winning the nation's top  junior tournament on Sunday. And in the process he blew away the challenge of top-seed Jay Clarke, the Derby youngster being touted in Britain as a future Andy Murray. 

Just three weeks after his 16^th birthday, the most prodigious young talent in Spain won the Juan Carlos Ferrero Trophy at Villena – the country's only Grade 1 tournament for players aged 18 and under. 

It was his second tennis crown in a row after he bagged the Grade 2 title at Vinaros, near Castellon the previous week.

And to emphasise his huge talent, the superfit six-footer from Torrevieja was the youngest competitor in each tournament.

The back-to-back titles earned Kuhn a mammoth 250 ITF ranking points, rocketing him to No.21 in the world rankings, one of only two players in the top 100 born in the 21st century.  His success has also and providing a timely morale-booster for his first tilt at the French Open at Roland Garros next month.

The son of a German father and Russian mother, Nico and his family have lived in Torrevieja since he was three months old. However, he switched his tennis allegiance to Germany when the country he regards as home felt unable to help with his colossal travel and equipment costs.

Nicola Kuhn with his mentor, former world No.1 Juan Carlos Ferrero

Over the past four years the Kuhn kid has led the German juniors to a string of successes, including the Final of last year's Junior Davis Cup, in which he was voted the tournament's Most Valuable Player.

Despite those successes, Nico never felt totally comfortable playing for Germany, even though he speaks the language fluently, along with English and Russian.

The process proved to be far more complicated than Nico and his parents had expected – not least the red tape involved in obtaining a Spanish passport in addition to the one Nico already had.

The official switch finally came last week, coinciding with the Juan Carlos Ferrero tournament – which also happens to be his 'home' base. He has trained and studied at former world No.1 Ferrero's's academy since he was 12 and his victory in Sunday's final against fellow Spaniard Alejandro Davidovich Fokina confirmed him as Spain's top junior player.

The manner of his victory in the final was not ideal, Fokina retiring with a back injury with Kuhn takng the first set 6-3 and leading 1-0 in the second set.

But the No.7 seed had been in supreme form all week, as epitomised by his 6-1, 6-3 thrashing of 17-year-old Clarke, Britain's No.1 junior,– in the quarter-final.

Nico, who began 2016 ranked No.70, is well ahead of schedule in his declared aim of reaching the world Top 10 this year. He has also set his sights on climbing into the ATP's top 600 and providing a springboard to fulfilling his lifelong dream of becoming a top professional player.

At his current rate of progress, it seems merely a matter of when, rather than if King Kuhn will achieve his ultimate ambition. He has already sampled the Grand Slam atmosphere at the 2015 US Open and this year's Australian Open. 

Now he feels he is ready to make a serious challenge for a major junior title - and  has earmarked Wimbledon in July as his prime target this summer.

He has little or no experience of playing on grass but will practise on carpet to replicate the All England Club's surface. And he says: "I believe I can do well there.'' 

The new Nadal: El NIco sets sights on Wimbledon breakthrough

Tennis superkid Nicola Kuhn aims to put the experience of his 21,000-mile round trip to the Australian Open  to good use - by soaring to new heights in his quest to become Spain's next Rafa Nadal.
And the Torrevieja-based   has a hunch that Wimbledon 2016 could be the tournament that launches him as a genuine Grand Slam contender of the future.
Nico, one of only two 15-year-olds in the world's Top 50 juniors, celebrated his flying visit to the Southern Hemisphere's only Grand Slam tournament by reaching the Junior Doubles quarter final in Melbourne.
That unexpected success alongside Japan's top junior Toru Horie followed a singles horror show in which Austrian-born Nico failed to progress beyond the last 64 after being given the medical all-clear to compete following a foot stress fracture.
“Just being there in Melbourne was a great experience but I definitely needed more preparation time,'' he told me just hours after arriving back in Spain. “One thing is for sure. Next year I will try to get there a week before the tournament.''
In a ploy designed to counter the effects of jet-lag, blond six-footer Kuhn – a top pupil of former world No.1 Juan Carlos Ferrero's Equelite Tennis Academy in Villena, near Valencia - stayed up all night at home in Torrevieja immediately before boarding his flight from Madrid to Doha en route to Australia.

The outcome of the eat now, sleep later exercise was particularly hard to swallow as, three days later, Nico was beaten by Canada's Jack Mingjie Lin after powering into a commanding 4-1 first-set lead in his opening match in Melbourne.
Lin went on to hit a streak of sensational form to take the match 6-4 6-3 and the lad from La Mata, who speaks Spanish, English, German and Russian fluently, generously conceded: “You can't do a lot to break someone's serve when your opponent is banging down three aces in his service games.''
However, Kuhn's overall game was about to come up with an unlikely ace of its own – a winning doubles partnership with Horie.
“Playing two matches in one day has been a bit too much physically in my career so far,'' Nico admits. “Now I find I can handle that sort of demand, so when Toru Horie suggested we partnered up for the Australian Open, I thought 'why not?' We had a tremendous match against each other in the Junior Davis Cup finals in October, when I won after saving two match points, and we also get on pretty well together.
“Our first match was a little crazy,'' reflected Nico on the new Horie alliance. “Basically we were both playing our own game but as things settled, it seemed to work OK and we started to feel more like a team.''
The first-round victory over Turkey's Irgi Kirkin and Aussie Alexei Popyrin and a shock success against No.4 seeds Yousef Hossam and Alberto Lim, took the unlikely lads into the last eight.
Kuhn and Horie finally capitulated to the eventual champions, local heroes Alex De Minaur and Blake Ellis, but Nico believes he and the highly-ranked Horie are destined for more success as a doubles pair.
Kuhn, who will be 16 next month, still has three more years' eligibility as a Junior, though his involvement with the ITF circuit is likely to be limited from now on as he pushes to climb the official Association of Tennis Professsionals ladder.
“My target is to be in ATP top 600 by the end of the year,'' he says, ''and also hopefully to reach the Junior Top 10.''
Climbing 1400 places up the ATP ladder (he is currently ranked 2009) will probably necessitate winning two Futures tournaments against adult professional opposition.
However, he already has enough ranking points to qualify for the main draw of all four junior Grand Slams and sees this summer's Wimbledon as the brightest ray of sunshine on the immediate horizon.
“The next Grand Slam challenge is the French Open at Roland Garros but Wimbledon is the one I am really looking forward to,'' he says. “I think I can do well there, even though playing on grass will be a new experience.''
More immediate on the agenda is the passport that will finally enable Nico to play under the flag of Spain, the country he has always regarded as home. His parents Alfred and Rita moved to Torrevieja when he was three months old and by his third birthday was already wielding his first tennis racket, a gift from mum and dad.
As the silverware mounted while still at junior school, the tennis authorities in his father's homeland Germany offered to finance Nico's rapidly increasing travel and equipment expenses – something their cash-strapped Spanish counterparts could not afford. And for the past four years Kaiser Kuhn has provided the main thrust of a highly successful German junior team.
The pinnacle was his record run of 11 successive singles victories in leading his father's homeland to the Final of the Junior Davis Cup and winning the tournament's Most Valuable Player award into the bargain.
That was to be Nico's final team appearance for Germany pending the long-anticipated arrival of the Spanish passport which will enable him to switch his national allegiance to the country he has always regarded as home.
Ironically, Nico is due to play in an ATP Futures tournament in Murcia on the day those passport formalities are scheduled for completion – adding yet another complication to the mass of red tape he has had to endure to be accepted on the international stage simply as El Nico, the blond  tennis kid from Torrevieja who made good.

Boris Becker: Nico, 15, is a better tennis player than I was at his age

I  don’t know about you, but the next few weeks are going to be a real pain in the neck for tennis fans.

It’s all down to catgut racketeers pinging shots from end to end as Wimbledon is transformed into a giant ball-room with Chubby Checker conducting the orchestra and every spectator’s head simultaneously doing the twist . 

Try pivoting your neck with a prawn sandwich in one hand and a bowl of strawberries and cream in the other. I guarantee you won’t put on weight unless your mouth is on back to front.

I’m not normally a huge fan of tennis but am rapidly becoming hooked by a rising star who I am convinced has a great future.

His name is Nicola Kuhn, he was born in Austria, is the son of a German father and Russian mother – and is a local lad from Torrevieja., just down the road from where I li

Nico Kuhn on his way to the German Under-16 title

ve in Spain.

To make the European flavour even stronger, 15-year-old Nico and his family have close ties with British neighbours whom he regards as his surrogate grandparents.

The blond Torry bombshell also happens to be one of only two players born in the year 2000 with an official Association of Tennis Professionals ranking. And I am convinced he'll win Wimbledon or one of the other Grand Slam singles titles by the time he's 21.

Nico’s rise and rise has been phenomenal. Hooked on tennis since the age of three, he eats, sleeps and breathes the game.

Last weekend, he was crowned Under-16 champion of Germany, the country he opted to play for when they offered to pay his massive travelling and equipment expenses. The cash-strapped Spanish tennis authorities had been unable to help but I suspect they already regret their decision.

Titles have come thick and fast for Nico, who led Germany to the Under-14 World Junior Championship last year, along with both European team titles, the Winter Cup and Copa Del Sol.

Those successes came after he had emulated Rafa Nadal a decade earlier in reaching the final of the prestigious Les Petits As junior tournament in France.

Kuhn went on to win the 2014 European Junior Masters title and in May, at the age of 15 years and two months, won his first-ever ATP point after being introduced to the professional scene via the $10,000 Futures circuit. Nadal was eight months older when he achieved the same feat.

However, while hyped-up hacks like yours truly get carried away with the idea that Nico is the No.1 15-year-old on the planet, his coach Fran Martinez insists: “We don't want to transmit that he is the best in the world. We like to say that he is in the top group of best players in the world. It is more realistic.''

There is no chance of the young six-footer’s ego disappearing into the clouds, either. Martinez, a former doubles partner of Australian legend Lleyton Hewitt, tells me: “The main objective for the team has been to build a player for the future, not to become obsessed with results now but  looking very much at Nico’s development both as a player and also as a human being.''

At the age of 12, Kuhn joined former world No.1 Juan Carlos Ferrero’s Equilite Tennis Academy at Villena, near Valencia, where he now lives and trains when he is not travelling between tournaments.

Nico and mentor, former World No 1 Juan Carlos Ferrero

“They are doing a very good job,’’ says Nico, who has already attracted lucrative sponsorships from Nike and Yonex.

“Juan Carlos is on court with us most of the days, and that’s very helpful. Everybody at the academy supports everybody else.''

Meanwhile, coach Martinez muses: “Where are Nico's limits? We don't know – he is a very young player with his whole life in front of him. At the moment he is working very hard with humility and we are focusing on the Junior (under 18) circuit and starting to play in ATP Futures events.

“We are very lucky that Juan Carlos Ferrero is very close to him, watching him improve day by day. Next year we want Nico to play all the Junior Grand Slams and compete in more ATP tournaments. ''

Perhaps the best guide to Kuhn's potential is the verdict of Boris Becker, Germany's greatest-ever player, who a couple of years ago ­labelled Nico ''a better player than I was at his age.''

Coming from Wimbledon's youngest-ever singles champion, that is some compliment.