Five things to know about Tallon Griekspoor
pa href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/tallon-griekspoor/gj37/overview'Tallon Griekspoor/a will try to earn the biggest win of his career on Sunday evening when he faces second seed a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/carlos-alcaraz/a0e2/overview'Carlos Alcaraz/a for a spot in the a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/tournaments/beijing/747/overview'China Open/a quarter-finals./p
pATPTour.com looks at five things to know about the No. 39 player in the PIF ATP Rankings before his big match in Beijing./p
pstrongTallon reached a career-high World No. 21 in November 2023/strongbr /
Griekspoor is currently the No. 1 Dutch player in the PIF ATP Rankings. Before 2021 he had never cracked the Top 100. He started his 2023 season at No. 95. Winning his maiden tour-level title at the ATP 250 event in Pune in January 2023, the Dutchman boosted his ranking early on in the season./p
pA third-round appearance at the a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/tournaments/australian-open/580/overview'Australian Open/a and semi-final run at the ATP 500 event in Rotterdam saw him steadily propel through the rankings. With another tour-level title at the ATP 250 event in 's-Hertogenbosch in front of his home crowd and a final run at the ATP 500 event in Washington, Griekspoor kept improving./p
pShowing consistency on the Tour throughout last season, including notable wins over a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/alexander-zverev/z355/overview'Alexander Zverev/a and a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/hubert-hurkacz/hb71/overview'Hubert Hurkacz/a, he reached a career-high No. 21 in November 2023./p
p[ATP APP]/p
pstrongHe made ATP Challenger Tour history/strongbr /
Griekspoor holds the ATP Challenger Tour record for most titles in a season, winning eight trophies in 2021. Nobody else has claimed more than six titles in a season (a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/benjamin-bonzi/bm95/overview'Benjamin Bonzi/a, a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/sebastian-baez/b0bi/overview'Sebastian Baez/a, a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/facundo-bagnis/bf23/overview'Facundo Bagnis/a, a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/juan-ignacio-chela/c514/overview'Juan Ignacio Chela/a, a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/younes-el-aynaoui/e121/overview'Younes El Aynaoui/a)./p
pDuring the 2021 season, Griekspoor started his ATP Challenger Tour title run by winning in Prague in May, followed by wins in Bratislava and Amersfoort./p
pHe then won five titles in a row, starting in Murcia, triumphing twice in Napoli, Tenerife, and the last one of the season in Bratislava again. He finished the season with an impressive 8-0 record in the Challenger finals./p
pHe also holds the record longest winning streak at the Challenger level in a single season with 25 wins in the same season./p
pstrongThe Dutchman is yet to win a match against Alcaraz/strongbr /
Griekspoor trails the Spaniard 0-3 in the pairrsquo;s Lexus ATP Head2Head series./p
pHe has never taken a set off the four-time major champion. All the losses have come on big stages and three different surfaces, at 2022 a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/tournaments/wimbledon/540/overview'Wimbledon/a, the 2023 a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/tournaments/indian-wells/404/overview'BNP Paribas Open/a and the 2024 a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/scores/archive/paris/96/2024/results'Paris Olympics/a./p
pldquo;Wasnrsquo;t my best match, I lost in three. I thought that on grass, if you want to beat the guy at some surface, it would have been grass in my eyes. But he played well there, I didnrsquo;t play too great,rdquo; Griekspoor a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.atptour.com/en/news/griekspoor-indian-wells-2023-feature" target="_blank"said ahead of their 2023 Indian wells match/a. ldquo;Hersquo;s one of the best players in the world, thatrsquo;s for sure. Hersquo;s so young. Hersquo;s injured, he comes back straight away, he plays so well. So itrsquo;s going to be really tough, but at the end I really like the challenge of playing him. Why not?rdquo;/p
pstrongimg alt="a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/carlos-alcaraz/a0e2/overview'Carlos Alcaraz/a defeated a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/tallon-griekspoor/gj37/overview'Tallon Griekspoor/a to reach the third round of the a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/scores/archive/paris/96/2024/results'Paris Olympics/a." style="width:100%;" src="/-/media/images/news/2024/09/28/22/04/griekspoor-alcaraz-olympics-2024.jpg?w=100%25" /br /
/strongemsupPhoto credit:nbsp;Matthew Stockman/Getty Imagesbr /
/sup/emstrongTennis runs in the familybr /
/strongBorn in Haarlem, Netherlands, Griekspoor started playing tennis at the age of six. His older twin brothers a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/scott-griekspoor/gc54/overview'Scott Griekspoor/a and a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/kevin-griekspoor/gc53/overview'Kevin Griekspoor/a are former players. As a kid, he used to join the two during their lessons. Scott climbed to a career-high ranking of No. 205 and Kevin reached World No. 655./p
pIn 2018, both Tallon and Scott won Challenger titles./p
pldquo;I always had two guys to look up to, six years older," a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.atptour.com/en/news/griekspoor-us-open-2021-feature" target="_blank"Griekspoor said/a. "They were much better and stronger than me at that time, so I really enjoyed that.rdquo;/p
pHis mother Monique is also a tennis instructor./p
pstrongFamilyrsquo;s racing history/strongbr /
Griekspoorrsquo;s father Ron is a former motocross driver./p
pldquo;I didnrsquo;t do [motocross] that much myself. I did it for fun. The other side of my family, my nephews, theyrsquo;re doing it professionally. In the family itrsquo;s tennis and motocross,rdquo; Griekspoor said. ldquo;Almost every weekend when itrsquo;s on, Irsquo;m watching it. Itrsquo;s just part of my youth. I grew up with it and I really, really like it.rdquo;/p
pThe 28-year-old is also a big Formula One fan and enjoys watching fellow Dutchman Max Verstappen./p
p[NEWSLETTER FORM]/p