KUDLA, Denis (USA)
BIOGRAPHY Display Men's Circuit record
Birth Date 17/08/1992
Birth Place Ukraine
Residence Arlington, USA
Nationality USA
Plays Unknown
Favourite Surface Grass
Coach Frank Salazar
Age Started Tennis 7
Age Turned Pro
Personal Interests Hobbies: Training
Thanks to wins at the G1 Eddie Herr and the GA Casablanca Cup, Kudla will move up to #3 in the ITF rankings. The next tournament he's entered in is the Futures event in Hollywood, Florida, beginning 1/18. He withdrew from the Australian Open.
Kudla has been very consistent on the junior circuit. I look forward to seeing how he does on the pro circuit.
I've seen him play a few times and he is a solid prospect for American tennis. Has all the shots, very hard working and takes tennis seriously. Some great junior wins for him at the end of last year but I think that now he is starting to play mostly men's tournaments.
Also I think this is a good thread to post about the two other decent prospects that train with Kudla at that Maryland tennis center.
Mitchell Frank has done great things in the juniors this year and is the number 5 junior in the world.
He's the 4 seed in the AO juniors right now and won his first match 6-2 6-1 over Jay Andrijic. Next up is Slim Hamza of Tunisia.
Also, Junior Ore is having more and more success and is now 21 in the ITF.
Kudla is already pro. Frank, as far as I know, is still an amateur. It will be interesting to see what he does in the next few months because there aren't many guys with junior rankings as high as he has that don't go pro. And I think Ore will play college tennis.
Frank lost in the third round of the Aussie Open. You have to wonder about his future with his very passive playing style.
Kudla seems like a much better prospect. He's off to a rough start on the pro circuit, however, having lost last week in the final round of qualifying and this week in the first round of the main draw to another young American, Alex Domijan.
When I saw that Frank struggled so much with Hamza, who is far from an elite junior, I would have bet money that he wasn't going any deeper. And obviously he unfortunately didn't, losing from 2-*0 up in the third.
It will definitely be interesting to see what the future holds for Frank. His ranking is inflated like a guy like Jason Kubler's, but at the same time he is 5 in the world with no points at any of the junior slams to defend. When you are that highly ranked of a junior it is probably extremely hard to pick the college route, not to mention I think I read somewhere that Frank's ultimate goal was to go pro. Still, super accomplished ITF guys like Kellen Damico and J.P. Smith have gone to college recently, so time will tell. I didn't watch Frank much at Kalamazoo this year so I can't really give a good assessment of him.
And as for Kudla, his results in the last couple of weeks haven't been good but I think it is a non-issue. Playing a vet like Obradovic in futures qualifying is tough and Domijan is doing well and just is better at this point. Domijan hasn't had a real breakthrough yet but is putting together some very solid results lately.
Mitchell was up a break in the third on Fernandes, who went on to win the whole thing. Oh well, it's only juniors.
He now has a WC into the Brownsville futures where he plays Latvian Adrians Zguns. Good luck
Kudla won his first Futures title today with a 7-5, 6-1 win over American Tyler Hochwalt. He only dropped one set in the tournament. This win should put him in the top 500.
Great win for Kudla today over Karlovic in 3 sets. 2nd yr in row he's won a rd at Newport. Also opening up the draw for others, and himself, in doing so.
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