By Randy Walker
@TennisPublisher
One of the great things about the U.S. Open is a not only seeing the top players in the world seek career glory but those lower-ranked players whose career highlight can come simply with a first-round win.
Take the case of Martin Damm Jr. on Day Two of the 2025 U.S. Open.
Damm, one of the promising young American players who has been riddled with injuries of late, won his first career Grand Slam singles match with a 6-3, 6-4, 6-4 win over another prominent young American player Darwin Blanch.
“It’s the best tennis moment of my life,” said Damm in a media gaggle inside the Bud Collins Press Room at the US Open after the win.
Damm, the son of Martin Damm Sr., a former top player from the Czech Republic who won the U.S. Open doubles title in 2006 with Leander Paes, was one of the top junior players in the world starting at age 15. At that age, he won the USTA National Boy’s 18s doubles title and earned a doubles wild card into the U.S. Open and won a first-round match to become one of the youngest players in the history of the event to win a doubles match. He also has a 2-0 career record against Carlos Alcaraz, albeit at the Wimbledon junior championships on grass and the ITF junior event in Porto Allegre, Brazil on clay. However, after his junior career, Damm’s launch into the pros was somewhat stalled, mainly due to injuries.
Damm tore two ligaments in his ankle just before Wimbledon in 2024, with his ranking inside the Top 200 at a career high of No. 175 and then came back to the courts too early, competing in the U.S. Open qualifying rounds last year (losing in the first round) and then found that he had a stress fracture.
“Lesson learned,” he said of trying to come back from an injury too soon. “I rushed it. I was still hurt. I played like three or four more tournaments and I couldn’t walk.”
Damm was in a boot for 11 weeks from October to February and while he was on the verge of getting into Grand Slam tournaments directly, he now had to dip down to play the lowest level $15,000 Futures events to rebuild his ranking. Ranked No. 467, he was forced to play Futures events in Sharm-El Sheikh, Egypt in February of 2025.
“It wasn’t fun. It wasn’t easy,” he said of dipping down to play 15K Futures events. “There were a lot of firsts. I thought I would never step foot in Egypt. Last year, the first five months of the year were the best tennis of my life. I was experiencing a lot of firsts and the next thing you know, I can’t walk to the bathroom.”
During a two-week stint at the Sharm-El Sheikh Futures, played at a coastal resort, Damm won the first event and was runner-up in the second. However, when his third-round points from the 2024 Miami Open Masters 1000 event dropped off, his ranking dropped below No. 700. But Damm persisted and continued to play 15K, 25K and Challenger-level events in Portugal, Finland and in the Republic of Georgia and slowly started to build his ranking back up.
The U.S. Tennis Association, still having faith in him, granted him a wild card into this year’s U.S. Open qualifying tournament with an ATP singles ranking of No. 431, over 200 ranking slots beyond the cutoff to even get directly into the qualifying rounds. But Damm won three qualifying round matches in straight-sets to gain entry into the main draw of a Grand Slam in singles for the first time. He was fortunate when his name was randomly placed in the draw to play Blanch, who at 17 years old, a main draw wild card after winning the USTA Boys 18s title and ranked only No. 364, whereas he could have drawn No. 5 seed Jack Draper or No. 6 seed Ben Shelton or No. 15 seed Andrey Rublev for example. With his wins so far in Flushing Meadows, Damm’s ranking will move at least into the top 300 in the world.
“Obviously, this wouldn’t be possible if the USTA didn’t gave me a wild card, so I’m super thankful to them,” Damm said. “It’s been an amazing few days. I’m super happy that I’m playing well but mainly that I’m staying healthy.”
