Wimbledon junior champion Noah Rubin recently announced he will be playing college tennis at Wake Forest University. While Rubin had previously indicated he planned to play college tennis, there aren’t many junior grand slam champions who go on to play in college. It’s less surprising now than it would have been ten years ago, given how old most players are when they start breaking through. However, it takes some serious restraint to hold off the allure of the pro tour, along with the agents who are surely reaching out to a Wimbledon junior champion.
If we’ve learned one thing over the last 10 years, it’s that there’s no clear answer to whether it’s better for an elite prospect to play in college instead of turning pro. There are many examples of players who seemingly benefited by playing in college, just as there are many examples of players who flamed out in the pros after choosing to skip college. There are also many players who had great junior careers who completely regressed in college, and never went on to even sniff success in the pros.
It’s much more common for coaches and commentators to cite the benefits of college tennis, and it often comes off like it is by far the best option. However, elite players who go to college and dominate often struggle to compete with the top level of pros, unless they are over 6 feet 7 inches tall (ie Kevin Andersen or John Isner). Former NCAA champions Steve Johnson and Bradley Klahn have seen moderate success since turning pro a few years ago, but gain most of their ranking points from challenger tournaments.
A couple of smaller guys who were dominant in college for varying lengths, Somdev Devvarman and Jesse Levine, have also had decent runs as pros. But neither has made much of an impact on the tour at its highest levels despite their success in college (although both have struggled with injuries). Additionally, recent NCAA champion Blaz Rola only managed a couple of games against Andy Murray at Wimbledon. However, it’s also possible that these players may have struggled on the futures tour straight out of high school, and would not have even reached the top 100 had they skipped college.
It seems a little unfair to use Isner as an example of the benefits of college tennis, given that his best shot is a serve that appears to be coming out of a tree. Isner certainly claims playing in college helped him develop his game. But he likely would have gotten where he is had he spent those years grinding away on the futures and challenger tour, given his unreturnable serve.
The real reason playing in college is often smart is because a player can make it a very short stay if they so choose. Some elite prospects will only play for a year or even a semester, and play professional tournaments on the side. If they are dominant in college and the pro tournaments they play as amateurs, they can elect to turn pro at any point. Unlike team sports where prospects can’t know for sure how they will fare against professionals, in tennis college players get this opportunity several times throughout the year. If they turn professional right away and it turns out they weren’t ready, they can’t go back and take a college scholarship.
Thus, unless a prospect is clearly ready to turn pro (ie going deep in challenger tournaments and able to compete with guys around 100-150 in the world) it’s much safer to sign with a school. This doesn’t necessarily mean college tennis will be great for their development, but they are keeping their options open and avoiding a potentially irreversible mistake. Furthermore, no individual player thinks they are going to be the one who regresses in college, even though this is more common than many think.
We can’t know for sure whether college tennis will end up benefitting Noah Rubin, but he is probably making the safe choice. With only moderate success in pro tournaments up to this point, he will have the chance to develop his game a little longer before facing the pressures of the tour. But he should know that it’s a different world on the professional tour, and college tennis may only take him so far.
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