Mitchell Frank Advances at U.S. Open Tennis Championships

Just two points away from defeat, Annandale's Mitchell Frank dug deep to pull of the biggest win of his career at the U.S. Open on Tuesday.

Competing in the first round of the qualifying tournament against world No. 135 Kenny De Schepper, ranked over 500 places in front of Frank in the ATP rankings, Frank used a solid counterpunching game to frustrate his opponent into errors. With a packed crowd squarely on his seed, Frank made good on his fifth match point with a 3-6, 7-6, 7-5 win that took over three hours to complete.

"It's an amazing feeling obviously," said Frank as he signed autographs and posed for pictures with fans after the match. "It was such a hard fought match, but I really liked having the crowd on my side and they helped get me through today."

The first set was one-way traffic for De Schepper, who broke Frank's serve twice while the Annandale native struggled to find the timing on his groundstrokes.

Down a break of serve early in the second set, Frank began to find a way to put more shots into the court and force the Frenchman to come up with winners. The plan worked as a missed forehand volley from De Schepper gave Frank the break of serve back at 3-3, and both players remained even until the second set tiebreak.

De Schepper went up 5-4 in the tiebreaker and was just two points from victory, but another missed volley, followed by a forehand passing shot from Frank gave the American set point. He converted on his first opportunity with a forehand set beyond the baseline from De Schepper, leveling the match at one set each.

Frank immediately broke his opponent's serve in the first game of the match and held that one-game advantage until he attempted to serve out the match at 5-4. Perhaps overwhelmed by the occasion, a pair of double faults and a backhand into the net leveled the match back at 5-5.

"I was thinking about closing out the match too much rather than just focusing on each point in front of me," said Frank.

However, Frank responded with one of his best games of the match, ripping a passing shot past De Schepper to take the lead back at 6-5. On his first match point, a forehand from the Frenchman was called out by the line judge, but then overruled as in by the referee, giving De Schepper the point.

"I knew it was in, but just really wanted that point," said Frank. "It wasn't a bad call though, which just made it easier to move on to the next point."

On his fifth match point opportunity, an angled slice forehand that dipped past his opponent finished off the upset and set Frank into the second round of the U.S. Open qualifying tournament, which will take place on Thursday. He will face Romain Jouan of France.

Frank is currently the No. 2 ranked junior player in the U.S. and has an ATP world ranking of No. 675. He will play on the men’s tennis team at the University of Virginia as a freshman this fall.

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One in a continuing series on how Annandale residents are persuing their American Dream.