Jake appears not to have a dedicated thread, but given that he won his second ITF title in Esch-sur-Alzette last weekend (his first being in Edgbaston last October, when he had to qualify & went on to beat Kyle in straight sets in the final) (both M25s), I thought he deserved one. He had an SE for the Loughborough M25 this week & has of course now reached the last 16 there. A short paragraph at the end of an article on the ITF site about the return of Kamil Majchrzak to the circuit after a doping ban refers to the fact that he, Jake & Oleg Prihodko were the three male winnners of ITF titles last week & reads as follows:
Fearnley, 22, will play another ITF event in Loughborough this week before heading back to Texas for one more season of college tennis at Texas Christian University, before tackling professional tennis full-time.
Just a little more background, Jake is from Dalkeith (which Google reliably informs me is a town in Scotland close to Edinburgh)
He used to train at the Merchiston Castle tennis academy (and pronounces his name 'Fern-ley', in case it's not obvious, not Fear-nley)
Born in July 2001, he is one of our great 2001 cohort (Jack Draper, George Loffhagen, Anton M, Harry Wendelken.....it's always been a very strong group)
He got up to #27 in juniors - he beat Carlos Alcaraz 6-2 4-6 7-6(12)!!! in the final of a G2 event in 2018
I remember seeing him at Roehampton when he was 17 - got a great crack on the ball even then - real power
Jake finished his US college career at TCU as the No 8 in the ITA rankings. He was a key player in TCUs post-season helping TCU to their first NCAA Team Championships Title and ITA Team No 1 ranked team. During his career he achieved 85 singles wins and 70 doubles wins.
As well as winning a Natty with his team, individually he achieved ITA All-American status in singles (2023, 2024) and doubles (2022, 2024) and was unanimously voted to the All Big 12 first team and Indoor Nationals All-Tournament team in his final year.
Today Jake won a challenger 125 in nottingham, a very promising result and hoping he can push on into the top 200 and maybe even further by the end of the year
How they had to completely rebuild his serve, the importance of the Next Gen Accelerator programme but overall, the importance beyond everything of his two coaches
Mind you, the list of the normal sort of injuries all these guys get is just off the scale though:
"It was more than just a mental challenge, though. Fearnley suffered a series of injuries that hindered his progress in college: a stress reaction in his rib, a torn posterior tibialis, a right rotator cuff injury, pubic osteitis in his pubic bone, a lower back injury due to a trapped nerve and a lot of torn abdominals."
-- Edited by Coup Droit on Sunday 30th of June 2024 07:23:58 AM
Thanks for linking to that, CD. I'm even more impressed with what he's done, learning how injured he's been (and still had a stellar college career!) and how much work he's put in to improve his game (and in ways that, I hope, will minimise injuries in the future).