How Zachary Svajda Found His Footing

The unlikeliest American fourth-rounder at the French Open gained traction on tour after tragedy hit his family.

PARIS, France — After 11 Americans had made it to the third round of the 2026 French Open across the men’s and women’s singles draws, it looked for a stretch on Saturday night like only one of them might make it to the fourth round.

Madison Keys and Frances Tiafoe both ultimately escaped tough tests under the lights, making the total three. But wow, what a story it would have been if the lone American left holding the flag in the second week at Roland Garros had been one of the unlikeliest candidates in the draw.

Zachary Svajda after winning his first round at the 2026 French Open. (Photo by Mark Peterson / Corleve)

Zachary Svajda, a 23-year-old from San Diego, said he’d never even stepped on a red clay court until he was in his 20s. At all professional levels, Svajda had an 8-24 record across both green and red clay coming into this tournament. He’d never won more than one match in a row on clay, and went 1-5 on the surface coming into Roland Garros this year.

Svajda was one of the best juniors in his generation. He won the boys’ 18-and-under national championships in Kalamazoo twice, in 2019 and 2021—and might well have won it a record third time if the 2020 edition hadn’t been cancelled due to the pandemic.

But despite that junior pedigree, Svajda was not quick to find his footing as a tour-level pro. He showed promise with the U.S. Open wild cards he’d earned through his Kalamazoo wins—pushing veteran Paolo Lorenzi to five sets as a 16-year-old, and taking a set off Jannik Sinner in the second round of the 2021 U.S. Open as an 18-year-old.

Those flashes Svajda could show against the game’s best were difficult to sustain into a tour-level career, however. And when Svajda finally started to get some momentum in early 2024, putting himself into the ATP Top 140 for the first time, his attention was inextricably pulled away from the court: his father, Pacific Beach Tennis Club coach Tom Svajda, was diagnosed with Stage 4 colon cancer, requiring intensive treatments and crowdfunding efforts.

Zach Svajda, who had taken a set off Novak Djokovic at the U.S. Open a little over a month earlier, didn’t play for the rest of 2025 after playing one match in China in September. Though Svajda betrays little emotion on court, his mind was spinning and he was determined to return home as quickly as he could.

“It was just so hard for me to focus, and also the doctors came back saying, ‘It could be any day’,” Svajda told the ATP website. “That’s when I was like, ‘I’m done, family comes first and there will always be tournaments’. Right after the match, I spoke to my mom—my dad couldn’t speak anymore because of all the things that were going on with him. I was talking to my mom, ‘I’m coming home and taking care of you guys’.”

After battling the aggressive disease for a year and a half, Tom Svajda passed away in October 2025.

When Zach returned to the tour at the beginning of this 2026 season, with both feet fully back on the tour in a way they couldn’t be while his father was ailing, he quickly found himself able to climb like he never had before.

Though he was no longer considered a “next big thing” in American tennis enough to regularly get wild cards, he instead worked his way through qualifying draws. He made it through four of them, earning spots in the main draws of the Australian Open, ATP 500 Dallas, ATP 250 Delray Beach, and ATP-WTA 1000 Miami. At his hometown San Diego Challenger in February, Svajda won the title, beating Sebastian Korda in the final. These results were enough to put him into the Top 100 for the first time; with his run to the fourth round of the French Open, Svajda could crack the Top 60.

After wins over Aussies Alexei Popyrin and Adam Walton—the latter of whom had knocked out Daniil Medvedev in the first round—Svajda scored his biggest win in the third round over 25th-seeded Francisco Cerundolo. The elder Cerundolo brother had been a popular pick to make the final out of the top half after his younger brother Juan Manuel knocked out Sinner; instead, he found himself going out against an unheralded but inspired player, drawing with a special source of power.

Svajda, who was cramping in the third and fourth sets, recovered to complete the stunning 6-3, 6-4, 3-6, 4-6, 6-3 win, and gushed in his own soft-spoken way in the press conference that followed.

“I know he’s watching from above,” Svajda said Saturday, which would have been his father’s 61st birthday. “It’s my dad’s birthday today. I was thinking about that, too. I was nervous. I know he’s proud of me, and I want to perform well and win. When I got that match, the last point, I just teared up, fell to the ground like, ‘Oh, my gosh, what is happening?’”

Tiafoe, who later joined Svajda in the fourth round, gave Svajda a big hug when he saw him in the locker room.

“I just wanna say a big shout out to Zach Svajda, man,” Tiafoe said after his own win. “That guy’s had a crazy story in his own respect, man. Obviously I thought he was gonna be at this level much sooner, but he had a lot of things going on. It’s great to see him tapping into his potential.

“He went through some emotional stuff, and obviously today, after the unfortunate passing of his dad. Today was his dad’s birthday: got it done, against a great player, great person in Francisco Cerundolo. That’s not easy—and getting it done in five, too. Clay’s not even Zach’s surface. That’s massive, man. I’d seen him emotional; I was like, ‘Bro.’ That lifted the hairs on my arms, honestly.”

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In addition to Zach Svajda vs. 10th-seeded Flavio Cobolli, which is up first on Chatrier at 11 a.m. here are four other picks for matches to watch on Monday:

To continue reading this post, with looks at matches to watch on Monday at Roland Garros—including an ultra-rare women’s night match—please subscribe to Bounces! The 15 percent off sale is still going on here for one more week! -Ben