Jan-Lennard Struff

At 36, Jan-Lennard Struff reached his first Grand Slam quarter-final at Wimbledon in July 2026, the oldest man in the Open Era to do so [8]. It was his 47th attempt at a major [9].

A first title in Munich

Struff won the BMW Open in Munich on 21 April 2024, beating Taylor Fritz in the final for his first ATP Tour title [7]. He was 33 at the time [7]. A later ATP report describes that Munich run as a title on home soil [2].

Before Brussels, his three earlier final defeats came at the Munich 250 in 2021, the Madrid Masters in 2023 and the Stuttgart 250 in 2023 [3].

Wimbledon 2026: a comeback against Hurkacz

Hubert Hurkacz won the first two sets of their fourth-round match on 5 July 2026, 3-6 and 6-7(5) [8]. Struff won the next two sets and led 4-2 in the fifth when Hurkacz retired [8]. That gave him a quarter-final against Jannik Sinner [9], and the first major quarter-final of his career [8].

Brussels: a semi-final win and a lost final

On Saturday 24 October 2026, Struff beat top seed Arthur Fils 6-4, 6-7(7), 7-6(5) in the Brussels semi-final [2]. He came back from a break down twice in the third set [2]. ATP called him the first German man in the tournament's history to reach the final, and the win his third over a top-10 player that year [2]. The same report calls it one of the biggest wins of his season [2], and the final was his first ATP Tour final since the Munich title in 2024 [2].

The final on 25 October went to Tallon Griekspoor, 4-6, 6-3, 6-4 after two hours and two minutes [3]. L'Avenir had Struff at No. 58 and Griekspoor at No. 60 before the match [3].

Basel and the ranking

Struff arrived in Basel with his confidence renewed [1] and opened Swiss Indoors with a 6-4, 6-3 win over Yannick Hanfmann on Wednesday 28 October [1]. The ATP preview of that day lists him as World No. 47 and says he had won five of his past six tour-level matches [1]. His next opponent was Novak Djokovic, who leads their head-to-head 8-0 [1].

Reports disagree on his age. The ATP semi-final report calls him 34 [2], while the ATP preview of 28 October gives 36 [1], which matches his birth date [4].

Build and style

Struff is listed at 193 cm and plays right-handed [5]. ATP's preview calls him a 'Big-serving German' [1].