Thursday, 07/25/2019

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Ohio State rising junior John McNally has had a good summer and it continued this past weekend as he made the final of his first professional event, finishing runner-up at the ITF event in Iowa City.

The Cincinnati, Ohio native entered the week with the highest ATP World Ranking of his career at 489. He knocked-off Paul Oosterbaan in straight sets in the opening round and then after dropping the first set to Gianni Ross in round two, he responded by winning the next two sets 6-1, 6-0 to move into the quarterfinals.

In the quarters, he took on former UCLA standout Evan Zhu who turned pro prior to this past season. The two traded the first two sets with 7-5 victories and then McNally pulled out a 6-4 win in the third. The semifinal match pitted McNally vs. Stanford rising junior Axel Geller. McNally won the opening set 6-2, dropped the second set in a tiebreak and then won the deciding set 6-2 to punch his ticket to his first professional final.

In the finals, he went toe-to-toe with former TCU All-American Alex Rybakov in another three-set match. Rybakov won the first set in a tiebreaker and then McNally forced a third set with a 7-5 win in the second. The third set was a battle that again headed to a tiebreak. Rybakov was able to pull off a 7-3 win in the breaker to claim the title.

McNally has a pair of Challenger victories this summer and reached the quarterfinals in another ITF event. He will be one of the most experienced returners this season on what should be a very talented young Buckeye squad.