The 21st century
Great Britain · born Worcester, 2001 · right-handed · Newport champion 2026
All playersBack to the rankings
2
Grass Challenger titles: Nottingham 2024, Newport 2026
6
Match points saved in the 2026 Newport final
49
Career-high ranking, June 2025
1,893
His ranking in October 2023, a year before his top 100 debut
2R
Best Wimbledon result: 2024 and 2026
Jacob Fearnley was born in 2001 and grew up in Dalkeith, near Edinburgh, where his grandparents and mother got him into tennis. Rather than turn professional from school, he spent five years at Texas Christian University, became a four-time All-American and helped TCU win its first NCAA team title in 2024.
He then rose faster than almost anyone: from No. 1,893 in October 2023 into the top 100 in late 2024, after winning his first Challenger on the grass of Nottingham and three more Challenger titles that autumn. In 2025 he reached the third round of the Australian Open and the French Open and No. 49 in June. His ranking fell in 2026, and he returned to the Challenger circuit; in July he won the Newport title. In November 2026 his ATP profile listed him at No. 87 with no tour-level title.
| Nottingham 2024 | Entered qualifying as an alternate, came through a final-set tiebreak in his first match and won the Challenger, beating Charles Broom 4-6, 6-4, 6-3 in the final. It was only his second Challenger event |
|---|---|
| Newport 2026 | Beat the fourth seed Adam Walton 5-7, 7-6(8), 6-4 after trailing 5-7, 1-5. He saved five match points at 3-5 in the second set and one more in the tiebreak, the most saved in a Challenger final since 2022. Newport has been a Challenger 125 event since 2025 |
| Wimbledon | 2024: beat Alejandro Moro Cañas, then took a set from Novak Djokovic, losing 6-3, 6-4, 5-7, 7-5. 2026: came back from two sets down to beat Alex Michelsen in the first round |
| Queen's Club 2025 | Reached his first ATP Tour quarter-final, lost to Jiří Lehečka |
| Ilkley 2026 | Runner-up in the grass Challenger to Bu Yunchaokete, 6-3, 7-6(1) |
"When I won the third set, I looked up at my box and I saw my teammates there, my family."
The person behind the player.
Texas Christian University
At TCU his serve fell apart; his coach Devin Bowen said that at one stage he was "probably averaging 15, 20 double faults a match", and Fearnley resorted to underarm serves. They rebuilt it, and Bowen later called it "probably his best shot right now".
Source: ATP TourJuniors
As a junior he beat both Jannik Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz when they were 15; the Alcaraz match was the final of a Grade 2 event in Spain, won in a final-set tiebreak.
Source: ATP TourOn tour
He and his coach agreed to find a different coffee shop every morning on the road. "We try to find the best coffee," he said.
Source: ATP TourWimbledon 2024
When he made the top 100, his close friend Jack Draper posted a childhood photograph of the two of them on Centre Court. Before Wimbledon his phone was so busy that he handed his Instagram account to a friend.
Source: ATP TourWimbledon 2024
Asked by John McEnroe where his Scottish accent had gone after five years in Texas, he said: "It's nowhere to be seen, but it's coming back, the longer I spend outside of the States."
Source: The ScotsmanFree membership: player news, the grass court Atlas, the rankings and the grass season calendar.
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