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The qualifying at the joint men’s and women’s Challenger in Granby has been a slog the last couple of days with torrential rain at times, and extreme heat and humidity at others.

But one Canadian man is through, out of the six who began, and he’s the least experienced of them all.

Alexander (Sasha) Rozin, 19 and going into his junior year at Arizona State, got past a couple of highly impressive opponents the last two days to qualify for the main draw.

On Saturday, Rozin (currently ranked a career high No. 1239) upset the No. 5 seed 7-6 (3), 6-3 the Granby qualifying – a fellow by the name of Hyeon Chung.

Chung, now 29, was ranked as high as No. 19 in the world in 2018, when he was just 21. But he’s been battling to come back from a back issue for years now, and only this year has been playing somewhat regularly. But he’s at No. 367 in the rankings, and has a ton of experience.

On Monday, Rozin pulled out a marathon over the No. 8 seed, Yusuke Takahashi, 7-6 (2), 3-6, 7-6 (5) to make the main draw.

Takahashi, 27, is currently at No. 422 in the rankings but has been as high as No. 238.

Little pro experience

Rozin, who turns 20 on Thursday, has almost no pro experience.

He has had wild cards to play the main draw of the $30K ITF in Laval the last three years, but won just one match – his pro debut in 2023, as it happens.

As it happens (!!!) Open Court was there.

He played a pair of $30K ITFs in Monastir, Tunisia on clay last month, and got to the quarterfinals in both. Those opponents ranged in ranking from No. 401 to No. 1162.

And that’s it.

All of which to say, this is the biggest tournament of his young tennis life.

No high level junior experience, either

As a junior, he barely cracked the top 250 in the ITF rankings and almost never left North or Central America.

Although his last junior event – a J200 in Woodbridge, Ontario – was a doozy. He won eight matches – three in qualifying, and five in the main draw, to win the title.

He’s a tall, lanky kid who never really seemed to be on Tennis Canada’s radar like some of his peers.

***Rozin, just about to turn 18, during his professional debut in Laval in July, 2023.***

But he seems to have gone his own way; we first saw him back in 2021, at the IMG Academy in Bradenton, Fla.

Rozin was working with Adriano Fuorivia, who took him down there for those junior events – the Eddie Herr and Orange Bowl (he went 0-2).

They were among the rare top-level junior events he played in juniors.

That got our attention, because Fuorivia was the coach who worked with Denis Shapovalov throughout his junior career, outside the Tennis Canada ecosystem. And he returned to work with Shapovalov periodically in the early years in the pros, mostly when he was between coaches.

Rozin even got to hit with Shapovalov, who was then represented by IMG and doing pre-season work there, the day we were there.

Four years on, physical maturation and good experience at the college level have clearly led to huge progress.

One to watch.

He got a good outcome when the qualifiers were placed Monday night as well. Rozin will face another qualifier – Kris Van Wyk of South Africa (a 28-year-old ranked a career-high No. 315) – in the first round of the main draw.