2024 US Open: Alexa Noel turns pro after winning an NCAA tennis title at the University of Miami

NCAA champion Alexa Noel's debut as a professional tennis player arrives next week at the U.S. Open — a decade after she went to Flushing Meadows with a racket in hand for the first time.

When she was about 11, the now-21-year-old American recalled, she was invited to a camp run by the U.S. Tennis Association at the site of the year's last Grand Slam tournament.

“They let us stand on (the court in Arthur) Ashe (Stadium)," Noel said in a video interview with The Associated Press. “And I was like, ‘This is so cool. I want to be here one day.’”

Noel earned this trip to New York, and a spot in her first Slam singles bracket, by winning a title for the University of Miami as a redshirt junior in May, the same month she graduated with a degree in sociology. She is giving up her final year of NCAA eligibility to go pro; Thursday's draw will determine her first opponent.

“She's ready. She’s a pretty confident player and she likes challenges,” said her coach, Lorenzo Cava, who used to work with 2020 Australian Open champion Sofia Kenin. “To be thrown into such an important event, there can be a question mark: How will she react? To the environment? To the big stage? To the pressure?”

As someone who showed promise at age 16 by reaching Wimbledon's junior final, Noel now aims to emulate the sort of success seen recently for athletes who went to college before heading to the tour.

That group includes NCAA champs Ben Shelton of Florida, a 2023 U.S. Open semifinalist; Danielle Collins of Virginia, a 2022 Australian Open finalist; Emma Navarro of Virginia, a Wimbledon quarterfinalist in July; and Peyton Stearns of Texas, who reached the fourth round in New York a year ago.

“It allows players to have somewhere to go, grow up, mature, become physically stronger, have some type of responsibility outside of just tennis,” Noel said, “and then give pro tennis a shot.”

She will walk away from the U.S. Open, where play begins Aug. 26, with a minimum of $100,000, the amount earned by players losing in the first round.

“That's a ton of money. It's going to support me for a little bit,” she said. “It's hard to start from zero."

This is, in a sense, a home-court appearance for Noel, who grew up in New Jersey from age 9; she was born in Arizona, lived in Toronto for a few years — picking up tennis at a summer camp — and now is based in Florida. In addition to her parents and an uncle, there will be childhood friends and college pals in the stands.

Ticket requests began pouring in after Noel clinched the wild-card entry the USTA awards to Americans winning college singles championships.

“I try and manage that the best way I can without being mean or without being too welcoming,” she said with a laugh. “It’s such a fine line, you know?”

Asked to describe herself as a player, Noel doesn’t start by mentioning a particular stroke — her serve, say, or forehand — or style, instead offering this: “I’m pretty passionate.”

“I use a lot of energy. Physically, emotionally, I’m just very invested in every point,” she said. “Sometimes I take it overboard, but that’s definitely a big part of who I am.”

Cava, her coach, says Noel “has a clear idea of her level and what the real world out there looks like and what she needs" to rise in the rankings. (She is outside the top 750).

“She can attack. She can defend. She has all the strokes,” Cava said. “One of her main objectives is to become much more aggressive.”

He's sure Noel won't be intimidated by the stage, in part because she's been there before.

There was that camp all those years ago. A wild-card appearance in doubles in 2019 after winning a title for teenagers. And, in 2018, a first-round junior singles match at Court 5, with its seating capacity of about 1,100.

She saved a match point that evening and came back to win — before losing to Emma Raducanu, who would go on three years later to become the U.S. Open champion — but what sticks out for Noel is not the result so much as the vociferous spectators who wandered over after the day session in nearby Ashe ended.

“Those people were probably like, ‘Oh, my God. It’s an American. Let me stop and look.' I have super fond memories,” Noel said. “I’m excited to make some more.”

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AP tennis: https://apnews.com/hub/tennis