Michael Zheng is one win away from his first Roland-Garros main draw after beating Stefano Travaglia 7-5, 7-5 in Paris on Wednesday, the latest step in a rapid rise that has taken him from Columbia University graduate to world No. 146. The 22-year-old American, who missed Columbia’s ceremonies on Wednesday May 20 because he was playing qualifying in Porte d’Auteuil, now faces top seed Jesper de Jong for a place in the tournament proper.
Zheng finished a psychology degree at Columbia in New York, but his spring has been defined less by campus than by clay. He qualified for January’s Australian Open with three rounds of qualifying, then made his Grand Slam debut there by beating Sebastian Korda in five sets. He also won three consecutive ATP Challenger titles last season and into 2026, results that have pushed him into sight on the ATP tour and given him a chance to keep climbing if he can get through one more match in Paris.
For Zheng, the contrast between classroom and court was immediate. He said he was sorry to miss graduation, though he joked that maybe someone would FaceTime him depending on when he played the next day. The setting has not dulled the scale of the opportunity: a win over de Jong would put him in the Roland-Garros main draw for the first time and add another marker to a season already full of them.
Travaglia brought the sort of test Zheng expected. He called the Italian a veteran who has been around a long time and has had plenty of success, which made the straight-sets win more meaningful than the scoreline alone suggests. Zheng also said he was surprised by the size of the crowd supporting him in Paris and hoped the fans would keep coming.
The rise has come quickly, and Zheng traces much of it to coach Ruan Roelofse, with whom he began working last summer. He said his ranking had been around 700 something before climbing into the 140, 150 range through the summer and fall, and credited Roelofse for helping him become more professional, physically stronger and more consistent week after week. That consistency, Zheng said, is what separates a good run from staying at that level. You can have good runs here and there, he said, but if you are not consistent enough, you will not be able to maintain it.
The timing is what makes this Paris run feel different. Zheng was already emerging as a player to watch before the French Open, but his latest matches have put him on the edge of another breakthrough. The next one matters most: de Jong awaits on Thursday, and a win would turn a strong qualifying campaign into a debut in one of tennis’s biggest stages.
