Italian tennis is certainly not short of promising young stars, and Flavio Cobolli has ensured that as another name to add to your watch list.
The rapidly-rising 22-year-old, who’d played just one Grand Slam main draw prior to 2024, is now seeded at a major after beginning the year ranked outside the top 100.
He has won matches at all four majors this season, with second-round finishes at Roland Garros and Wimbledon bookended by trips to the third round at Australian Open 2024 and this week at the US Open.
Thanks to a four-set win over Zizou Bergs on Thursday, the No.31 seed lines up against Daniil Medvedev, a former champion at Flushing Meadows.
And Cobolli will enter one of the biggest matches of his career so far surging in confidence, given the results that have preceded this run.
When you also consider his victories in qualifying rounds, including three to reach the main draw at AO 2024, Cobolli has won almost 40 matches this season.
As his fellow Italians were creating tennis history at the Paris 2024 Olympics – Jasmine Paolini and Sara Errani won women’s doubles gold after Lorenzo Musetti won men’s singles bronze – Cobolli was progressing to the Washington DC final.
He stunned second seed Ben Shelton to reach the final, where he came within a set of his first ATP title before falling in three sets to Sebastian Korda.
"I'm shaking, I'm so happy," Cobolli said after beating Shelton.
“I'm so proud of myself. It's my first final... This week is unbelievable. I think it's my week.
“Every day I woke up and I just want to play my tennis. This is maybe the reason that I'm here."
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It might have come out of the blue – Cobolli was barely ranked inside the top 50 at the time – but there was the sense he’d been steadily building to this point.
Washington DC was the fifth ATP event of 2024 where he’d reached at least the quarterfinals, and the previous four had come at tournaments on all three surfaces.
He continued riding the wave, beating top-20 stars Felix Auger-Aliassime (in Montreal) and Tommy Paul (in Cincinnati) to establish himself as one of the form players of the North American summer.
He enters his showdown with Medvedev – the highest-ranked player Cobolli has met in 2024 – having won nine of his past 12 hard-court matches.
Cobolli has also risen to become one of five Italians aged 23 and under among the top 40.
He’s arguably one of the more eye-catching of the group, given he sports brightly-coloured On clothing – the same worn by Shelton and Iga Swiatek, and a company in which Roger Federer has a stake – and has a penchant for tattoos.
He also doesn’t want to plateau at his current ranking.
Projected to crack the top 30 with his latest result in New York, Cobolli declared his ultimate ambition is to reach world No.1.
An upset win over Medvedev at the US Open would put him a step closer to that lofty goal.