For Noah Rubin, it's all coming together
MELBOURNE — In the early-morning hours Monday in Merrick, N.Y., Jessie Rubin, her mother and a few family friends sat yelling at their TV screen and — eventually — celebrating the events they watched unfold from half a world away.
It was Jessie’s brother, Noah, who was the cause for the late-night commotion: The 19-year-old ranked No. 328 in the world, a wild card into the Australian Open, shocked No. 17 seed Benoit Paire in the first round 7-6(4), 7-6(6), 7-6(5).
“We streamed it live on ESPN3,” Jessie wrote in an email to Paste BN Sports. “We are just so incredibly proud of him. He has worked and trained so hard for this his entire life and we know this is just the beginning.”
The beginning in the sense that it was a first-ever Grand Slam win for Rubin, a Wimbledon junior champion in 2014 who left college after one year at Wake Forest to pursue the pro circuit full time this past summer.
After a surprise run to a lower-level Challenger event title in Charlottesville, Va. last fall, he earned the U.S. Tennis Association’s reciprocal wild card into Melbourne Park.
And then, he beat Paire.
“It all came together today,” Rubin told Paste BN Sports in an interview after the upset. “I went to college and I fell off a lot people’s radar, but winning my first title [in Virginia] and this, they show that I’m not messing around. I’m here to compete.”
The win made Rubin the first American and just third teenager ranked outside the top 300 to defeat a top-20 opponent in a Grand Slam in the last 30 years.
Wednesday in Melbourne he plays another Frenchman in Pierre-Hugues Herbert. A qualifier, Herbert is lower-ranked than Pair, at world No. 167.
Yet it’s a match that Rubin will approach with the same vigor.
“Everyone is talented, the top 150, 200 guys in the world,” Rubin told reporters. “You can’t take anyone lightly. Everyone is a great competitor.”
Rubin, too, is a great competitor. At 5-foot-9 and barely 150 pounds, he punches above his weight from the backcourt. The Long Island native is based at the John McEnroe Tennis Academy just outside of Manhattan, where he works with long-time coach Lawrence Kleger as well as his father, Eric.
Monday in Melbourne his dad, who had just celebrated a birthday, was the second person he texted after the win following his girlfriend, Alex. The two, who met playing tennis, have been together almost three years.
It took Rubin three sets to unseat the mercurial Paire, a wiry 6-foot-5 Frenchman who possesses a gigantic serve and – as Rubin puts it – a backhand he “hasn’t missed in six years.”
But in heat that soared over 90 degrees Monday, Rubin was the cooler and more consistent player, thanks in part to a week of intense fitness work in Miami last month with his trainer, Richard Mensing.
“I don’t know too much about [Noah],” American No. 1 John Isner said Tuesday. “He’s definitely smaller in stature.”
That is made up for by his mental toughness and speed, says sister Jessie.
“I love when I see him smiling to himself during the match because I know he's just so grateful to be playing at such a high level and is having the time of his life,” she wrote. “He is so mentally tough. As I was watching, I kept saying how it's a good thing he is so cool, calm and collected.”
Of the eight American men into the second round here, Rubin is the youngest, four years the junior of Jack Sock and Denis Kudla, both are 23.
Young American players are knocking on the door again, with Rubin being a part of a batch of up-and-coming teenagers on the rise. Taylor Fritz, 18, lost a five setter to Sock on Tuesday, while Rubin, Fritz, Reilly Opelka and Tommy Paul have each won a junior Grand Slam in the last 18 months.
“It’s nice to have this group of guys competing together,” Rubin said. “I almost put pressure on myself because I want to bring the old spirit of tennis back to the States. I want that excitement.”
Monday he got excitement, waving to the crowd in near disbelief on Court 6 after match point was complete. Can the lowest-ranked player in the draw keep his magical Melbourne run going?
“I’m not here to win one match,” he said. “I love being in the spotlight. That’s where I always play my best tennis.”
The spotlight will be on switch on from around the globe, including from his own home in New York.
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