Noah Rubin

Noah Rubin (born February 21, 1996) is an American former professional tennis player. He was the Wimbledon junior singles champion in 2014, and a former USTA junior national champion in both singles and doubles. After turning pro in 2015, he won four ATP Challenger titles.

Rubin also played college tennis for the Wake Forest Demon Deacons in the 2014–15 season. Entering the year as the ITA No. 1 ranked college freshman, he finished the season as an All-American and the runner-up in the 2015 NCAA singles championship.

Despite only peaking at No. 125 in the world, Rubin became a notable player on the tour for his efforts to advocate for mental health awareness on the ATP Tour and greater pay for lower-ranked professional players.

In October 2022, Rubin announced he would retire from tennis and pursue a career as a professional pickleball player. Following limited success on the pickleball tour, he returned to professional tennis in January 2024.

Early life and education Rubin is Jewish, and his bar mitzvah had a tennis theme. He attended the Merrick Jewish Center religious school, and collected donated tennis rackets for the Israel Tennis Centers as his mitzvah project. He has said, "I want people to know I'm Jewish and I like to represent the Jewish people." His older sister Jessie was captain of the Binghamton University tennis team.

He has lived in Rockville Centre and Merrick, New York. He attended Levy-Lakeside Elementary School and Merrick Avenue Middle School, and then went to John F. Kennedy High School in Bellmore, Long Island for one year, after which he studied via an online program at the Laurel Springs School, graduating in 2014.

Junior career

Rubin played for the John McEnroe Tennis Academy on Randalls Island in Manhattan. In 2011, when Rubin was 15, John McEnroe called him "the most talented player we've come across." He also won the Copa Del Café, a Junior ITF tournament in Costa Rica, in 2012.

As a junior, Rubin reached as high as no. 6 in the International Tennis Federation's world junior ranking and no. 1 in the United States in 2014. He was the first American boy to win Wimbledon since Donald Young in 2007. He had played only one other event in 2014 before Wimbledon at the French Open, where he lost in the second round.

The month after hoisting the trophy at Wimbledon, Rubin played in and won the 2014 U.S. Tennis Association's Boys 18s National Championships in both singles and doubles (with close friend Stefan Kozlov). His scholarship there allowed him to leave the university after one year and return at any time to complete his degree.

Rubin ended his 2014–15 freshman season with a 26–4 record, mostly playing no. 1 singles, and ranked no. 5 in the U.S. He was the first player in Atlantic Coast Conference history to be named both men's tennis ACC Player and Freshman of the Year in his freshman season, and was the first Wake Forest ACC men's tennis Player of the Year, and the third to win Freshman of the Year. Playing doubles mostly with Jon Ho at No. 2 doubles, he had a 15–6 record. in the main draw of the 2016 Australian Open, where he beat the 17th-seeded Benoit Paire in three tiebreaks in the first round.

Rubin cracked the Top 200 for the first time by qualifying for the 2016 Indian Wells Masters tournament. In the clay court season, he recorded an upset win over 59th-ranked Denis Kudla, the No. 1 seed at the Sarasota Open. Having missed most of the summer tournaments due to a rolled ankle injury he suffered while jogging in June that cost him five months of training and competition, Rubin returned to form in October, reaching his second career Challenger final at Stockton.

2017–2018 Rubin started the 2017 season by winning his first round match at the Australian Open, before falling to eventual champion Roger Federer in the second round. He then went back to Australia and won his second Challenger title at Launceston, Tasmania, in an all-American final against Mitchell Krueger. For the second consecutive year, Rubin missed a few consecutive months of the late spring and early summer due to injury; this one a severely sprained right wrist that he suffered in April when he slipped on a clay court during a tournament in Houston that resulted in him losing 10 months of serious competition and training. This was his first title on clay and put him back in the Top 200 of the ATP rankings. The title also helped him clinch the French Open Wild Card Challenge to earn a wild card into the main draw of the French Open. In his debut at the tournament, he was beaten by compatriot John Isner.

2019–2022 Rubin played in the main draw of the 2021 Winston-Salem Open as a lucky loser. He lost 6–2, 6–0 to former world No. 1 Andy Murray. Rubin defeated top seed Ernesto Escobedo in the first round of qualifying at the 2022 Hall of Fame Open, but lost in the final round of qualifying to William Blumberg. His last career professional match was in the 2022 Citi Open where he lost 6–2, 6–0 to Taro Daniel in the first round of qualifying. Rubin stated that he was unhappy with his current level of play and sustained a wrist injury that may have required surgery if he wanted to continue playing at a professional level. In the post, Rubin did not rule out returning to professional tennis, but he stated he will be involved with a number of endeavors including "documentaries, clothing lines [and] clubs." In October 2022, Rubin announced he would become a professional pickleball player. Rubin has an Instagram account that has met with “modest success,” Behind the Racquet, where players share personal struggles of living on the professional tour. Rubin has found the process to be therapeutic for dealing with the realities of “often lonely, physically taxing life” of professional tennis. He said, the “goals of the online series – to break the stigma of mental health, to allow players to share their stories and to let fans relate to players on a deeper basis.”

Challenger and Futures finals

Singles: 12 (4–8) Legend (singles)ATP Challenger Tour (4–2)ITF Futures Tour (0–6)Titles by surfaceHard (3–5)Clay (1–3)Grass (0–0)

Doubles: 3 (1–2) Legend (doubles)ATP Challenger Tour (1–1)ITF Futures Tour (0–1)Titles by surfaceHard (1–0)Clay (0–2)Grass (0–0)

Junior Grand Slam finals

Boys' singles ResultYearChampionshipSurfaceOpponentScoreWin 2014 Wimbledon Grass Stefan Kozlov 6–4, 4–6, 6–3

Singles performance timeline

Record against other players Record against top 10 players Rubin's match record against those who have been ranked in the top 10. Players who have been No. 1 are in boldface.

Marcos Baghdatis 1–0 Mikhail Youzhny 1–0 John Isner 1–1 Nicolás Almagro 0–1 Roger Federer 0–1 Fabio Fognini 0–1 Andy Murray 0–1 Kei Nishikori 0–1 Andrey Rublev 0–1 .

Wins over top 10 players