Jan-Lennard Struff is a German professional tennis player who was born on April 25, 1990, in Warstein, Germany. He started the sport early, at just six. The influence of both his parents would have been a strong one since they were both tennis coaches.
After perfecting his craft at local and international junior tournaments, the German was keen to get into the world of professional tennis, with him turning pro in 2009. Throughout the first few years on Tour, he was often going deep in the ATP Challenger and ITF tournaments he was still taking part in, but the elusive ATP main draw debut was still hard to come by for him.
After not managing to advance past the qualifying stages in all of the 250 and above tournaments he entered up until 2013, his main draw ATP debut came in Barcelona in 2013. Despite losing in the first round, it paved the way for access to more prestigious tournaments along the way, including giving him enough confidence to win three rounds of qualifying to get to the first round of the Grand Slam at Wimbledon.
Progress kept coming, and in 2014, the German reached his first ATP semifinals in Marseille, Munich, and Metz, further propelling himself up the rankings. The following years proved stable for Struff, as he consolidated his spot on the world stage and trucked on with getting gradually deeper at tournaments.
One could say, however, that he found himself in 2018, but not on the singles court. The German reached the Australian Open doubles semifinal, as well as the Wimbledon quarterfinal of the same discipline. 2018 was also the year in which he won his first ever ATP title, unsurprisingly in doubles.
The first bit of silverware for Struff came at the Japan Open in Tokyo with partner Ben McLachlan. As progress purred on nicely, he continued to plug away at the singles. Pre-2023 Wimbledon, the German, in fact, reached his career-high ranking of number 21 in the world, earning himself a coveted seeding spot at the All-England Club.
Despite being a somewhat late-bloomer, Struff is certainly nothing to be taken lightly on a tennis court, with his powerful game proving potent to anyone who comes up against him.
