Jan-Lennard Struff is a first-strike grass player whose serve carries him further than his ranking suggests, and in 2026 it carried him to a first major quarter-final at the age of 36. He finished the season 7th in the men’s GTC Grass Rankings with a rating of 113, up from 12th.
Grass at a glance
- GTC Grass Rating: 113, 7th in the men’s rankings (12th before the season)
- Pillars: Lawn Form 68, Arsenal 76, Wimbledon 54, Nerve 64
- Nationality: Germany
- Best Wimbledon result: Quarter-final (2026)
- Grass titles: None yet in singles (Stuttgart runner-up 2023; Stuttgart doubles champion 2026)
- Plays: Right-handed, two-handed backhand, 1.93 m
How Jan-Lennard plays on grass
Struff’s game is built for short points. At 1.93 m he hits a heavy, flat first serve that stays low on grass, and he follows it with an aggressive forehand or a move to the net. He is one of the few players on tour who still serves and volleys regularly, and on a quick court that pattern takes time away from opponents who want to settle into baseline rallies. The volume of free points is the clearest sign of it: he served 100 aces on the way to the 2026 Wimbledon quarter-finals.
That serve-led style explains an Arsenal pillar of 76, his strongest score. The weaknesses are the other side of the same coin. His return is functional rather than damaging, his movement to wide balls is slower than that of the leading baseliners, and when an opponent neutralises the first strike he has fewer ways to build a point. His Nerve score of 64 is solid for a player who spends so many sets in tie-breaks, and his 2026 Wimbledon showed real resilience in long matches.
Grass record
Before 2026, Struff’s Wimbledon ceiling was the third round, which he reached in 2018, 2019, 2024 and 2025. He missed the 2023 Championships with a hip injury, and his home events have been mixed: in Halle he lost his opener to Ilya Ivashka in 2022. His best grass result came at Stuttgart in 2023, where he reached the final and lost to Frances Tiafoe. His only ATP singles title so far came on clay at the 2024 BMW Open in Munich.
The 2026 grass season
The lead-in was modest. In Stuttgart he beat the Canadian qualifier Alexis Galarneau 6-2, 6-7(5), 6-3 before losing a three-set match to Alexander Bublik, although he did win the doubles title there with Yannick Hanfmann. He then took a wildcard into Mallorca, beat Martin Landaluce 6-3, 1-6, 7-5 and lost 4-6, 5-7 to Nuno Borges. His rating stood at 107 going into Wimbledon, the same as at the start of the season.
Wimbledon changed his year. Ranked 74th, he won five-set matches against Sebastian Báez and Brandon Nakashima, then beat eighth seed Daniil Medvedev 7-6(4), 7-6(5), 7-5 in the third round. In the fourth round he recovered from two sets down against Hubert Hurkacz, who retired with Struff leading 4-2 in the fifth set. That made him the oldest man in the Open Era to reach a first major quarter-final. Jannik Sinner ended the run 7-5, 7-6(4), 6-3, but the fortnight lifted his rating from 107 to 113. GTC held the increase below the very top because so little of it was backed by form earlier in the swing.
Looking ahead to 2027
Struff will be 37 next summer, and the main question is whether the serve and the body hold up across a full grass swing. His likely schedule is Stuttgart and Halle, the two German events, followed by Wimbledon. To protect a top 10 GTC place he needs more wins before Wimbledon, since a lead-in of one win per event leaves his rating heavily dependent on a single tournament. A realistic target is a deep run at one of the German events and a second week at Wimbledon; repeating a quarter-final would require a similarly kind draw.
