Juan Manuel Cerúndolo (born 15 November 2001) is an Argentine tennis player.
Cerúndolo has a career high ATP singles ranking of World No. 79, achieved on 31 January 2022. He also has a career high ATP doubles ranking of No. 376 achieved on 3 February 2020.
2021: First ATP title, three Challengers titles, top 100 and NextGen finals debut[]
Cerúndolo made his ATP main draw debut at the 2021 Córdoba Open where, as a qualifier, he won the title. The world No. 335 was the fifth lowest ranked player to win an ATP Tour title since 1990[1] and the youngest Argentine tennis player to reach an ATP final since Jose Acasuso in 2001 and win an ATP tournament since Guillermo Coria in 2001,[2][3] and the first player to win a title in his debut ATP event since Santiago Ventura in 2004.[4][5]
In May 2021, Juan Manuel won his first challenger title on clay in an all-teenage final at the 2021 Garden Open II Challenger in Rome. He was the youngest Argentine champion on the ATP Challenger Tour in 12 years since Federico Delbonis and the first player to win on both tours in the same season since 2019.[6] As a result he reached a career-high ranking of World No. 152 in singles on 3 May 2021 and 2 weeks later entered the top 150 at No. 146.
In August and September, he won his second and third Challengers in Como, Italy and Benja Luka, Bosnia and Herzegovina.
He made his debut in the top 100 after a semifinal showing at the Challenger in Buenos Aires at World No. 94 on 25 October 2021 becoming only the fourth teenager to crack the top 100 rankings in 2021. He is the first from the South American nation to be in the Top 100 while under the age of 20 since Juan Martin del Potro in 2006. In addition, Cerundolo is only the seventh Argentine teen to reach the Top 100 since 1990, along with 18-year-olds Del Potro, Jose Acasuso and Guillermo Coria and 19-year-olds David Nalbandian, Mariano Puerta and Mariano Zabaleta.[7]
After Felix Auger-Aliassime withdrew from the 2021 Next Generation ATP Finals, the ATP announced Cerúndolo as the next qualifier on 1 November 2021. He was the first player from South America to qualify in the tournament's history.[8][9]
In his Next Gen ATP finals debut, Cerúndolo lost to fourth seed Brandon Nakashima in his first match. He then was defeated by seventh seed Holger Vitus Nodskov Rune. His third and final match ended in defeat to the tournament's top seed Carlos Alcaraz.[10][11][12]
2022: Grand Slam and top 80 debut[]
Cerúndolo made his Grand Slam debut at the 2022 Australian Open as a direct entry into the main draw where he lost to qualifier Tomáš Macháč. He reached the top 80 on 17 January 2022.
Personal life[]
His older brother Francisco Cerúndolo is also a tennis player.[13][14] The Cerundolos in 2021 became the first brothers to reach back-to-back finals on the ATP Tour since 2017, when Alexander Zverev won the title in Rome and Mischa Zverev reached the final in Geneva.[15]