Ethan Quinn Made His Move Up ATP Rankings In 2025

By Randy Walker

@TennisPublisher

It is said that it takes about two years playing full time on the pro tennis tour to get settled and used to the machinations of a career as a pro tennis player.

Ethan Quinn is right on schedule.

The 2023 NCAA singles champion for the University of Georgia broke into the Top 100 of the ATP Tour singles rankings during a 2025 season that marked exactly two years since he turned professional after one year of college tennis. Quinn’s 2025 season started with a ranking of No. 203 when he started his season playing in the qualifying rounds of a the Canberra Challenger in Australia. At the end of the year, his year-end ranking was No. 70 and saw him play in the main draw of three of the four major tournaments, highlighted with a third-round showing at Roland Garros.

At that season-opening Challenger in Canberra, Quinn not only advanced through the qualifying rounds into the main draw, but he advanced all the way to the final where he lost to Brazilian sensation Joao Fonseca. In making his transition from Challenger level player to ATP Tour level player, the native of Fresno, California grinded out most of his match wins in the qualifying rounds. He nearly broke the ATP Tour record for most times advancing into the main draw of an ATP event via qualifying when he turned the trick nine times during the 2025 season, one shy of the ATP Tour record for a single season. (He did, however, advance out of qualifying one other time as a lucky loser in Delray Beach, Florida.) Had Quinn won final-round qualifying matches at two of his last events of the year in Vienna and Stockholm, he would have set a new record and become an obscure part of ATP Tour history.

Ethan Quinn Nears ATP Tour Record With Ninth Passage Via Qualifying Rounds At Rolex Paris Masters

Quinn’s career-high ranking of No. 64 from November places as the third-highest ATP-ranked former University of Georgia player behind John Isner, who ranked as high as No. 8, and Mikael Pernfors, who ranked No. 10, and moving ahead of Norman Holmes, who ranked No. 70 in 1976.

Speaking at the 2025 U.S. Open after he lost in the first round of singles but reached the round of 16 in doubles, Quinn spoke of the mind-set switch that many professionals must have when first getting used to playing on the ATP Tour.

“A good week is sometimes just winning one match,” he said. “The level out here is very, very good. It doesn’t matter if you’re 120 in the world or 60 in the world, the level is very high level. It’s tough to win matches. So it’s trying to flip your mind and say like, ‘Oh, winning a first round every week, that’s good.’ So now it’s kind of moving through that and trying to put together two matches in a row, maybe three matches in a row.”

Quinn finished the 2025 season with a 12-18 record for the season but it also propelled him up 133 spots in the ATP Tour rankings and earned him $899,486 in prize money.

“It’s just trying to find ways where you can play your best levels of tennis in the first round but continue to play that level because if you show up in the first round and you don’t have your best, you’re going to lose, and then in the second round you’re playing an even better player than the first,” he said. “You’re playing a guy that’s seeded, that may have had a bye. So it gets really difficult and so you’re just trying to piece together as many matches as you can.”

Quinn won his first ATP Tour-level main draw singles match of the year at the Dallas Open in February, defeating Trevor Svajda in the first round after winning two matches in the qualifying rounds before losing to world No. 9 and training partner Tommy Paul. The following week, he got into the main draw of the Delray Beach Open via a “lucky loser” spot as an alternate after losing in the final round of the qualifying draw. It was in Delray Beach where Quinn said he was starting to gain his bearings on the ATP Tour versus playing in Challenger level events.

“Now I’m leveling up to the ATP Tour rather than the Challenger Tour,” he said after his first round win in Delray Beach over fellow American Tristan Boyer, as you can read here https://worldtennismagazine.com/ethan-quinn-and-the-progression-of-a-pro-tennis-player-at-the-delray-beach-open/24533 “So I’m learning things and the ins and outs of the ATP Tour. I feel like I’ve almost, not mastered the Challenger level, but now I know how to get through it each week. The ATP Tour is a little bit different. You have these amenities that you wouldn’t really have at some of the Challenger tournaments. Obviously you have stadiums like this, which is pretty incredible. You’re just trying to kind of manage everything. The changeovers are a lot longer on the ATP Tour and I had to really figure that out how can I manage the time in between. Sometimes you’re on the bench and you’re like, ‘Wow, this is a lot longer than the Challenger Tour.’ So, I’m kind of learning how to manage that and kind of let down from the last games and then fire yourself up for the next game. You have to really see and feel the changeovers and you can only do that by playing more tournaments.”

Quinn said the highlight of his 2025 season was reaching the third round of Roland Garros after advancing into the main draw via qualifying, the first time he played in a main draw of a Grand Slam tournament without the comfort of a main draw wild card. After benefitting from an injury to Grigor Dimitrov that allowed him to advance into the second round, Quinn won a five-set thriller – the first five-set match and win of his professional career – defeating Alexander Shevchenko 6-4, 4-6, 6-7(5),7-6(3), 7-5. He then played another five-set match in the next round, but fell to No. 35-ranked Tallon Griekspoor 4-6, 6-1, 2-6 6-1, 6-4.

“The French Open is something I look at a lot,” said Quinn of his 2025 highlight while at the 2025 U.S. Open. “Being able to qualify in playing three tough opponents, and then being able to play two back-to-back five set matches…that’s not easy to do/ I’d never done it before and kind of going into a slam, or is my first main draw really since you USTA provided me a wild card a few years back into here, it’s something that’s really daunting. You come into the tournament, you’re like, “Oh shoot, can I play five sets,” and then to do it two matches in a row. It gave me a lot of confidence going into the rest of the season where, all right, I know that the training I’m doing is getting me to where I need to be. I know I just need to continue pushing. I can even push harder now.”

The result in Paris propelled Quinn into the top 100 for the first time. He the won first-round main draw matches in five of his next six ATP events, including at Wimbledon, his first major tournament as a direct entry and not via a wild card or via qualifying. Quinn said winning so many first round matches (11 in all over the course of the 2025 season) was also a highlight of his season.

”It’s not that easy to win first rounds and for me to be able to do that just shows that I’m competing week in, week out and consistently bringing a product that I’m able to put out a product that I’m really happy about,” he said. “It’s not easy to show up every single match and I feel like I’ve done a really good job of that this season and I think as I move forward for this season and go into next season, I really would like to be able to put a better product for more matches in a row. Being able to win first rounds a little bit more handily. I’ve won a lot of seven, six matches in the third this year, so being able to win matches a little easily, or more easily in the first round and then try and extend my tournaments through the second round.”

Before he started his freshman year at the University of Georgia, Quinn stated that he wanted to follow in the footsteps of fellow Southeastern Conference tennis standout Ben Shelton from the University of Florida as he stated at the Mardy Fish Children’s Foundation Tennis Championships $15,000 “Futures” level event in Vero Beach here: https://youtu.be/IvW3Fl1a4jg?si=XxoOeo1CcsvYjMQa And he did, when he succeeded Shelton as the NCAA singles champion in 2023 the year after Shelton won the title. In 2026, Quinn will no doubt aim to equal Shelton’s success on the ATP Tour and will aim for deep runs at Grand Slam events and a Top 10 ranking.