LI’s Rubin Falls Short in ATP World Tour Debut

August 18, 2014 | By New York Tennis Magazine Staff

Rockville Centre’s Noah Rubin made his ATP World Tour debut at the Winston-Salem Open on Sunday night, falling to American Bradley Klahn at the Wake Forest Tennis Complex at BB&T Field. The Wimbledon Juniors champion dropped a tough, three-set bout with Klahn 2-6, 6-0, 6-7(5) in his first ever appearance on the ATP World Tour.

“It was a great atmosphere, at my second home now, so it was just a great experience to get out there,” said Rubin, who will be a freshman this fall at Wake Forest. “I thought I came up with a good effort and just came up a little bit short. But I’ll get many more chances, hopefully.”

The match’s momentum changed with each set, making for a thrilling three-set battle. Klahn broke Rubin early in the opening frame before cruising to the 6-2 first set victory.

Rubin would respond with a flurry of his own and dominated the second set. He broke three times and held all three times as Klahn put up a bagel, and Rubin won 6-0 to force a deciding third-set.

“It was my first ATP match and I got a little tight,” said Rubin. “It rarely happens to me. But I think I took it pretty professionally and just went out there and played my game in the second set. I figured if I lost 6-0, then so be it, but I wanted to play my game.”

The third-set was indicative of how the match went, as Klahn jumped out to a 4-1 lead before Rubin picked up two break points and moved ahead 5-4. The Long Island native was then serving for the match, but had his serve broken which forced a tiebreaker.

With momentum back on Klahn’s side, he rattled off four straight points in the breaker to finish the match.

“I just told myself to buckle down and hit balls and if he was going to beat me, then he needs to come up with something special,” said Klahn. “I wasn’t going to give him any errors. And I know how tough it is to serve out your first ATP match myself. Nerves are to be expected and I tried to use that to my advantage.”

Rubin admitted that he felt some nerves early on in the first set, but rebounded nicely to force the match into a third-set tiebreaker. Despite the defeat, the 18-year old had a lot of positive takeaways from his debut.

“Number one is I can play with these players,” said Rubin. “If nobody knew that, today I think I proved it to them. And if not, I’ll prove it to them at the Open. There’s room for improvement, but I’ll definitely keep working hard.”

Klahn moves ahead into the second round where he will play top-seeded American John Isner.


New York Tennis Magazine Staff
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