Federico Cinà keeps climbing. The 19-year-old from Palermo beat James McCabe 6-2 6-3 in the third round of the Jingshan Challenger 100 and, on the live ranking, sits at No. 141 on the ATP list with 401 points. Since 9 September he has gained 40 places: a remarkable jump for such a young player.
The Jingshan result matters for two reasons. The first is the scoreline, clear-cut against an opponent our site lists at No. 246 with 224 points. The second is the moment: Cinà's last 10 matches read 3 wins and 7 losses, and a clean two-set win is worth more than the points it adds to the ranking.
Speaking of points: the player page shows Cinà has already collected 32 points since the start of the tournament. If he wins his next match, the round of 16, he will reach 411; if he won the whole event, the ceiling would be 491. For a 19-year-old, those numbers can reshape a season.
For now, the ranking tells a story of tight margins. Ahead of the Italian is Stan Wawrinka, No. 140, on the same 401 points, and further up, at No. 139, Vilius Gaubas with 411. Behind come Pablo Llamas Ruiz, No. 142 with 397 points, and Nishesh Basavareddy, No. 143 with 394. A few matches are enough to gain or lose places.
The comparison with Wawrinka is also a snapshot of different eras. The Swiss is 41 and a half, Cinà 19 and a half: two decades apart and the same number of points. The Swiss has dropped 13 places since 9 September and has 70 points to defend over the next six weeks, while the Italian is travelling in the opposite direction. His last match, according to the site's player page, was a first-round loss at the US Open to Matteo Berrettini.
Back to the match in Jingshan. Against McCabe, Cinà closed it out 6-2 6-3 on hard court. No long sets, no tie-breaks, no chasing: an orderly performance that lets him prepare for the next round without burning precious energy.
McCabe, for his part, leaves the tournament with 5 points and stays at No. 246. The 23-year-old arrived in Jingshan after uneven results: his last 12 matches read 4 wins and 8 losses. His 2025 season at the main tour level ended at one win and two losses.
To understand the recent path, look at the past few weeks. In Chengdu, at the ATP 250 later won by Alejandro Davidovich Fokina over Hubert Hurkacz in the final (6-4 7-6(7)), the Italian had beaten Camilo Ugo Carabelli 6-3 6-2 in the third round. In the round of 16 he lost to Alexandre Muller, 7-6(3) 6-1.
The Muller match is their only meeting so far: the head-to-head page says 1-0 to the Frenchman, who is 29 and a half and now No. 132 with 441 points. A first set decided by a tie-break shows the match was closer than the overall score suggests.
The rest of the autumn had not been as generous. In Guangzhou, at the Challenger 100, Cinà lost in the third round to James Kent Trotter 6-4 6-1 and collected 5 points. At the US Open, in the first round of the Slam, he met Alex Michelsen: 6-4 6-1 6-0 to the American, and 10 points for Cinà. Not failing grades, but not a celebration either.
His 2025 season on the main tour stands at 2 wins and 4 losses, with no titles or finals. There is the first-round loss at the Italian Open to Mariano Navone (6-3 6-3) and the third round in Brussels, where Damir Dzumhur beat him 6-7(5) 6-2 7-6(3) after a three-set battle. In the site's last 14 matches, his record is 5 wins and 9 losses.
At Challenger level the picture is more encouraging. In 2025 he collected 10 points in Rennes, reaching the round of 16 at a Challenger 100, and 3 in Mouilleron-Le-Captif, at a Challenger 75. These are events where players grow by playing a lot, and small points, added together, count.
His official rivalries are few and still to be written: 0-1 against Dzumhur, 0-1 against Muller and 0-1 against Grigor Dimitrov. Three losses against more experienced opponents, but it is hard to expect a 19-year-old to have a veteran's record. Time, in these cases, is on his side.
The Jingshan tournament goes on. The next obstacle is in the round of 16: a win would take Cinà to 411 points, the same as Gaubas today, and ahead of Wawrinka. A title would push him as high as 491, a much higher level than his current ranking.
There is one fact not to forget, though. The last 10 matches read 3 wins and 7 losses, and the form line over the last 14 is at minus 4. The ranking rewards the most recent Cinà, but consistency is still to be built: one good match is not enough, you need many in a row.
For Italian fans, anyway, the signal is a good one. Cinà is 19, was born on 30 March 2007 and has climbed 40 places since 9 September, in a crowded part of the ranking where a few points separate one player from the next.
What happens now? The next date is the round of 16 in Jingshan. The numbers say the Italian has the wind in his sails, but tennis gives no discounts: the coming hours will tell whether the climb continues. We will follow the live ranking day by day.