Ben Shelton, Jack Draper, Holger Rune nominated for Newcomer of the year in 2022 ATP Awards

ATP
Thursday, 08 December 2022 at 07:00
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They are among the brightest young stars on the ATP: Ben Shelton, Chun-Hsin Tseng, Jack Draper, Jiri Lehecka and Holger Rune. And all five are nominees for the Newcomer of the Year in the 2022 ATP Awards, to be announced later this month.

Selected by players, the award goes to the #NextGenATP player who entered the Top 100 for the first time in 2022 and made the biggest impact on the ATP Tour this season.

Ben Shelton, aged 20, reached the third round at Cincinnati and made four Challenger finals in six tournaments to round out his year. furthermore, in November he became the youngest player in Challenger history to lift three trophies in as many weeks. Having started 2022 at No.573 in the ATP Rankings, Shelton ended it a career-high No.97.

Chun-Hsin Tseng, 21, enjoyed a breakthrough season this year. A series of strong performances on the ATP Challenger Tour combined with the first three ATP Tour match wins of his young career propelled Tseng more than 100 spots to a year-end No.86 in the ATP Rankings.

Holger Rune, 19, lifted his maiden ATP Tour title in Munich in May, just two days after turning 19, before upsetting Stefanos Tsitsipas en route to his maiden Grand Slam quarter-final at Roland Garros. The Dane then responded to a moderate run of mid-year results like a seasoned pro, claiming two further titles while winning 19 of his final 21 matches of the year.

That sublime run included championship match appearances in Sofia and Basel, and Rune defeated World No. 5 Tsitsipas in straight sets to win the Stockholm Open. He capped off his year with the biggest title of his career, battling past Novak Djokovic in a thrilling Rolex Paris Masters final to break into the Top 10 of the ATP Rankings for the first time.

Jack Draper, 20, claimed four ATP Challenger Tour titles in the first three months of the season. He would later reach the semi-finals in Eastbourne, the quarter-finals in Montreal and the third round at the US Open before rounding out his year by reaching the semi-finals at the Next Gen ATP Finals.

Draper’s exploits helped the 20-year-old jump from No.265 in the ATP Rankings at the start of 2022 to No.42 by the year’s end, a perfect springboard for the Briton as he looks to hit new highs in the 2023 season.

Jiri Lehecka, 21, qualified for his first Grand Slam main draw in January at the Australian Open, where he pushed Grigor Dimitrov to four sets in the first round. Three weeks later, Lehecka reached the semifinals in Rotterdam as the World No.137.

A quarter-final run in Kitzbühel and an ATP Challenger Tour title at home in Liberec helped propel Lehecka to his career-high ranking of No.59 in August and he ended his 2022 season on another high by reaching the final at the Next Gen ATP Finals.

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