Tallon Griekspoor’s 2021 US Open experience has been quite the thrill ride this week. Just two days ago, the world No. 121 notched his first-ever US Open win in the first round, and when he steps onto the court under the lights of Arthur Ashe Stadium on Thursday night, he’ll find himself across the net from the No. 1 player in the world, a three-time US Open champion and a 20-time Grand Slam champion. Talk about going zero to 60 in the blink of an eye.
As the luck of the draw would have it, the Dutchman will play Novak Djokovic for a spot in the third round. While it may be a daunting task for a rookie (just ask Holger Vitus Nodskov Rune), “Grieki,” as he is nicknamed, can still pose a test for Djokovic.
Griekspoor has won all three Challenger finals he has reached this year, at Prague, Bratislava, and Amersfoort, where he bested countryman Botic van de Zandschulp in three sets. And as we’ve seen so many times before, anything can happen when a Grand Slam win is on the line.
Here’s more on the 25-year-old Amsterdam native.
He doesn’t favor taking the easy way out to win a match.
Griekspoor has notched six ATP Tour-level wins in his career, and every single one of them has been won in a deciding set. A few of those wins were over top-ranked opponents: He defeated Stan Wawrinka on home soil at 2018 Rotterdam; Karen Khachanov at 2019 Rotterdam; Marcos Giron at 2021 Montpellier; Denis Kudla at 2021 Acapulco; and Juan Ignacio Londero at 2021 Gstaad, all in a decisive third set.
This week, he took it to the next level and came back from a 2-sets-to-1 deficit to defeat Jan-Lennard Struff in five sets in his first-round tussle. If he has any hope of taking down the top seed and history-chasing Djokovic on Thursday, he may need every inch of another five sets to do it. At least we know he’s willing to grind and make it a match.
The chances of Griekspoor serving his opponents off the court are high.
The 6-foot-2 Dutchman’s biggest weapon may well be his rocket serve, which clocked in at a high of 149 mph in his first-round US Open victory over Struff. In that match, Griekspoor struck 58 winners, 30 of which were aces.
Tennis is in his bloodline.
Not only is his mother a tennis instructor, but his older twin brothers Scott and Kevin both played professional tennis, with Scott reaching a career high of No. 205 just three years ago and Kevin peaking at No. 655 in 2017. Tallon and Kevin teamed up to win a Futures doubles title at Heraklion, Greece, in 2017.
An adrenaline junkie, he may have opted for motocross were he not a tennis player.
With his father being a former motocross driver, Griekspoor was highly active in the sport as a child, and names Dutch motocross racer Jeffrey Herlings and Dutch Formula One driver Max Verstappen as his favorite athletes.
"I can't say that I like it more than tennis, but I like it as much as I like tennis,” he said of the sport. “Those guys work so hard and it's really physical. The feeling it gives you to ride this fast, it's everything for me."
