Even though I just got back from two weeks stringing at the NCAA tournament, I am excited to start working again as the official stringer for an ITF Pro Circuit $15K Futures event being held at the Wake Forest Tennis Complex in Winston-Salem.

A 64 draw qualifying tournament will be held on May 30-31, with the 32 player main draw beginning play on June 1. There will also be a 16 team doubles tournament.

There are some 600 tournaments across 77 countries on the ITF Pro Circuit, which is the entry level of professional tennis. The same week the USA F16A Futures is held in Winston-Salem, other ITF Futures tournaments will be held in China, Lebanon, Uzbekistan, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Croatia, Egypt, Georgia, India, Israel, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Mozambique, Portugal, Russia, Slovenia, Spain, and Turkey.

Players in ITF Pro Circuit events earn ATP ranking points, so these events provide an opportunity for players to build up their rankings so they can jump to ATP Challenger level events and eventually the ATP World Tour. A player who wins one round in a 32 draw $15K ITF Men’s Circuit event earns 1 ATP ranking point. Two rounds = 3 points, three rounds = 8 points, 4 rounds = 15 points, and the winner receives 27 points. By comparison, at the Winston-Salem Open (ATP World Tour 250 level event), a first round winner receives 20 ranking points (more than all but the winner of a $15K futures) and the winner receives 250 points.

Even so, these small number of points available on the ITF Men’s Circuit can make a big difference in the life of an aspiring professional. As of May 25, 2015, #1 Novak Djokovic has over 13,000 ranking points, #50 Jerzy Janowicz has 940, and #100 Marinko Matosevic has 526. Even winning a Futures even would make little difference to these players.

But consider #844 ranked Noah Rubin, who just completed his freshman year playing for Wake Forest and was recently the NCAA men’s singles finalist. He has 20 ATP ranking points. Making the semi-finals of the Winston-Salem Futures would nearly double his points and increase his ranking to by over 150 places. Winning the tournament could push him into the top 600 in the world.

As of this writing, Rubin is the 13^th highest ranked player accepted into the tournament. The highest ranked acceptance is Kevin King ranked #318. A 2012 mechanical engineering graduate and two time All-American at Georgia Tech, King’s year end ranking has increased from 1,433 in 2012 to 506 in 2013 to 372 in 2014, when he won back-to-back Futures events in Mexico.

King is followed by former Virginia Cavelier Sanam Singh at #361, former Tennessee Volunteers Rynne Williams (#374) and Tennys Sandgren (#377), and former Kentucky Wildcat and NCAA finalist Eric Quigley at #396. The lowest ranked direct acceptance was #1091 Christopher Marquis of India.

The qualifying draw for the Winston-Salem Futures is twice as big as the main draw, giving players who do not have ATP rankings an opportunity to earn ranking points. Some names of unranked players that stood out to me on the qualifying acceptance list were Wake Forest’s Jon Ho and Maksim Kan, Northwestern’s Strong Kirchheimer, and top North Carolina juniors Anudeep Kodali and Nick Stachowiak.

Since these players are grinding it out for a few points and a few hundred dollars, I will be interesting to see how much stringing I do for players who may fall between having their stringing paid for by their parents or colleges and making enough money on tour to string as much as they would like.

Other information about this ITF Pro Circuit event and one next week at the University of Virginia, from the USTA:

The tournaments, which will create more opportunities for professional match experience on American college campuses, are being privately funded and will not be a part of the USTA Pro Circuit. As the national governing body for tennis in the U.S., the USTA applied for and secured their official tournament sanction from the International Tennis Federation.

“Having opportunities to play professionally, at all levels, is important to tennis in the United States,” said USTA Player Development General Manager Patrick McEnroe. “It’s exciting that Virginia and Wake Forest are taking the initiative to stage and host these events, and we certainly hope American players take advantage of these opportunities.”

And from Wake Forest Men’s Tennis Head Coach Tony Bresky:

I’m excited to announce the addition of a $15,000 Men’s Pro Futures Event to our home facility,” Wake Forest men’s tennis coach Tony Bresky said. “We already have a great event in the Winston-Salem Open and to be able to add another professional tournament gives our players more opportunity to compete at the highest level and further development. For our guys, their focus is set on being able to play professionally after college and to be able to compete in pro events while still in school on our home courts is a great advantage.