Jeffrey John Wolf
Jeffrey John "J. J." Wolf is an American professional tennis player. Wolf played collegiately at The Ohio State University. Wolf began playing semi-pro tennis in 2016 and three years later, in July 2019, signed with Topnotch Management to play professionally.
Early years
Wolf was born in Cincinnati, Ohio and attended Cincinnati Country Day School in Indian Hill, Ohio. In 2016, as the nation's third ranked recruit, he committed to playing collegiate tennis for the Ohio State Buckeyes.On the junior tour, Wolf has a career high ranking of 18 achieved on 16 May 2016.
College
In his first season, at Ohio State University, Wolf was named 2017 Big Ten Freshman of the Year and First-Team All Big Ten.As of April 23, 2019 Wolf is the #1 ranked college player in the U.S.
In 2019, Wolf had a combined record of 45-3 between singles and doubles matchplay. On April 25, 2019, Wolf was named Big Ten Men's Tennis Athlete of the Year.
Professional Career
Wolf made his Grand Slam main draw debut at the 2016 US Open in the doubles event, partnering John McNally. He received a wild card to play in the men's singles qualifying competition for the 2017 U.S. Open, but did not win a set.On August 12th, 2018, Wolf defeated world No. 85 Jozef Kovalik in the first round of qualifying at the 2018 Western and Southern Open in Mason, Ohio. Wolf won the match 7-6, 7-6. This upset marked Wolf's first win against an ATP top 100 player.
Wolf turned professional in July of 2019 and signed with Topnotch Management.
On September 22nd Wolf made it to the finals of the Columbus 3 Challenger event losing to Peter Polansky 6-3 7-6. He beat fellow rising American Michael Mmoh in the round of 16 and No. 1 seeded Emilio Gómez in the semi-finals.
Wolf reached a career high of 189 in the ATP Singles Rankings on November 18th, 2019 after winning the 2019 Champaign Challenger, defeating Sebastian Korda 6-4, 6-7, 7-6 in a tight two-and-a-half hour match. In January 2020 he started the year by winning the ATP Challenger Tour final in Noumea, defeating Yuichi Sugita in the final.
Challenger and Futures finals
Singles: 5 (5–1)
Result | W–L | Date | Tournament | Tier | Surface | Opponent | Score |
Win | 1–0 | USA F34, Harlingen | Futures | Hard | Evan Zhu | 6–7, 6–1, 6–2 | |
Win | 2–0 | 2019 Columbus Challenger – Singles| | Columbus, USA | Challenger | Hard | Mikael Torpegaard | 6–7, 6–3, 6–4 |
Loss | 2–1 | 2019 Columbus Challenger III – Singles| | Columbus, USA | Challenger | Hard | Peter Polansky | 3–6, 6–7 |
Win | 3–1 | 2019 JSM Challenger of Champaign–Urbana – Singles| | Champaign, USA | Challenger | Hard | Sebastian Korda | 6–4, 6–7, 7–6 |
Win | 4–1 | 2020 BNP Paribas de Nouvelle-Calédonie – Singles| | Noumea, USA | Challenger | Hard | Yūichi Sugita | 6–2, 6–2 |
Win | 5–1 | 2020 Columbus Challenger – Singles| | Columbus, USA | Challenger | Hard | Denis Istomin | 6–4, 6–2 |