Kumstat rises to No.162 after reaching the Taipei final

Jan Kumstat has climbed to No.162 in the ATP Rankings, the best position of his career. The 19-year-old from the Czech Republic gained 32 places in a single week, from No.194 to No.162, thanks to his run to the final of the Taipei Challenger. The title went to Japan's Yosuke Watanuki, who beat him 7-6(2) 7-5 in the final.

The jump matters because it comes in a part of the rankings where a handful of points moves you several places. Kumstat has 351 points: Daniil Glinka, at No.161, has two more, while Andrea Guerrieri, at No.163, has two fewer. Francesco Passaro, at No.160, is just three points ahead. One good round at a Challenger is enough to reshuffle the picture again.

Taipei was a Challenger 100 event played indoors, starting on 2 November. The points scale was simple: 100 for the champion, 60 for the runner-up, 36 for the semi-finalists, 20 for the quarter-finals, 10 for the second round and 5 for a first-round exit. Reaching the final earned Kumstat 60 points, the biggest haul of his autumn.

The week did not start smoothly. In the first round Kumstat had to come from behind against Joel Schwaerzler: he won the opening set 7-5, dropped the second 6-3 and only closed the match in a third-set tie-break, 7-6(2). It was the first sign of a week in which the key moments almost always went his way.

In the second round he faced Britain's Billy Harris, beaten 7-6(8) 6-4 after a very long first-set tie-break. The quarter-final was riskier: France's Harold Mayot took the first set 6-3, the Czech levelled in a tie-break, 7-6(5), and closed out the third 6-4.

The semi-final was more straightforward. Kumstat beat Japan's Yuta Shimizu 7-5 6-4, against an opponent who had dropped only four games to Australia's Omar Jasika in the quarter-finals, 6-2 6-2. Up to that point the Czech had won all three of his tie-breaks.

The final against Watanuki was again decided in a tie-break, but this time it went the Japanese player's way: 7-2 in the first-set breaker. The second set ended 7-5 for Watanuki, who sealed the title in straight sets. Kumstat's tie-break record in Taipei finished at three won out of four.

Watanuki's week had no weak moments. The 28-year-old beat Lloyd Harris 6-2 6-4, Masamichi Imamura 6-1 6-1, Alexandre Muller 6-4 6-7(5) 6-1 and, in the semi-finals, Chak Lam Coleman Wong 7-6(5) 7-6(6). The 100 points for the title lifted him from No.375 to No.237, a 138-place jump that also gives him a career-high ranking.

Taipei was the first meeting between the two, so the head-to-head now reads 1-0 to Watanuki. The Japanese player is almost nine years older than Kumstat and has long experience on the main tour and the Challenger circuit: from 2021 to 2025, in the main-tour events tracked by the site, he has a record of 15 wins and 19 losses.

In numbers, the tournament was a tie-break festival: 15 in 27 matches, with eight matches going to a deciding set and no retirements. The draw featured 28 players from 17 nations, with Japan the best represented (four players) and Kumstat the only Czech. The longest match was Omar Jasika against Jake Delaney, 4-6 7-6(6) 7-6(8), 36 games in all.

On the Taipei honour roll Watanuki succeeds Yoshihito Nishioka, who beat James Duckworth 7-5 7-6(5) in the 2025 final. Japan therefore keeps the title for a second year in a row.

Before Taipei, Kumstat's autumn had been less brilliant. At Olbia, a Challenger 125 that began on 12 October, he beat Edas Butvilas 7-6(4) 7-6(5) before losing in the second round to Jacob Fearnley, 6-4 6-3; the Briton went on to reach the final, which he lost to Damir Dzumhur. At the Seoul Challenger 125 at the end of October, the Czech went out straight away against Sho Shimabukuro, 6-4 6-0.

His season, however, had already been special. In the summer, as the official ATP website reported, the Czech won three Challengers in a row, in Liberec, Hamburg and Prague, two of them in front of a home crowd. Kumstat comes from Prostějov, the same town as Jakub Menšík.

His goals at the start of the year were far more modest. "From the start of the season, I had a goal that it would be good to be in the Top 400," he told the ATP website in August. Today he is more than 200 places above that mark.

In the same interview, after his third straight title, Kumstat raised the bar: "it is my goal to play in the Next Gen Finals". That was a target he set in August, when the Czech was fifth in the ATP's Next Gen Race.

After Taipei the Czech was entered at the Brisbane 3 Challenger, a Challenger 75 that began on 9 November, but he did not take the court: the draw records a first-round walkover for Australia's James McCabe. McCabe then lost in the second round to Christian Langmo, 6-2 4-6 6-3.

The quarter-finals are being played in Brisbane today: Sebastian Gorzny against defending champion Alex Bolt, Dane Sweeny against Juncheng Shang, Bernard Tomic against August Holmgren and Akira Santillan against Langmo. Kumstat keeps the haul from Taipei, which has taken him where he had never been before.

The next step is to consolidate this position. With four players packed within five points between No.160 and No.163, every tournament in the final weeks of the season can change the order. The player's page on the site updates his ranking and points live.