Special Feature
15-Year-Old Trent Bryde Wins ATP Qualie Match in Atlanta
by Ron Cioffi, 9 December 2015
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Sitting in the restaurant of his training facility, Trent Bryde coolly answers a series of questions about the best week of his young life. That performance last summer may just have been spurred by the mature, focused demeanor he showed in the interview, handling questions like soft second serves.
Bryde was only 15 last July when he won the
BB&T Atlanta Open Wild Card Challenge. The competition awarded one player a wild card into the ATP World Tour 250 qualifying event. Lining up to vie for the honor was a host of seasoned college players, including Trey Yates of the
University of Kentucky and Michael Kay of
Georgia Tech, who was the finalist in 2014.
But staring them down was a baby-faced competitor who was a month away from getting his driver's license.
Adding to Bryde's stunning success was a first-round qualie victory over 33-year-old ATP World Tour pro Catalin-Ionut Gard.
Bryde had talent from the get-go, according to father, Bruce, who was the director of tennis at the Standard Club in Johns Creek, Georgia, when Trent was growing up.
"I knew he would be exceptional when he was at about seven years old. I could see it in his quickness, hand-eye coordination, his overall ability to hit the ball," Bruce said, noting, "He has exceeded from where I thought he would go." His crowning achievement was winning the 2012 USTA Boys' 12s Clay Court Championship.
Athletics run in the Bryde with mom, Kathi, a former softball player, and sister, Karlee, who plays tennis for Furman University.
Bryde came into the Atlanta challenge after a whirlwind tour of ITF tournaments that took him to four South American countries, Italy and Belgium, all with the help of the USTA. He also nailed a victory in the USTA Southern Winter Level 1 Championships when he beat blue-chip sophomore Patrick Kypson. He advanced to the quarters at Kalamazoo before running into JJ Wolf. Those performances helped move Bryde up to the No. 1 recruit in Georgia and No. 5 nationally for his class.
As summer approached, Bryde turned his attention to the Wild Card Challenge. "I had the goal at the end to maybe play the BB&T. It's not the end of the world if I didn't win."
