J.J. Wolf, the former top 40 tennis star, is facing new worries on his shoulder injury that kept him off the ATP Tour for one year after he was forced to retire with continued shoulder pain and weakness in his quarterfinal match at the $15,000 Mardy Fish Children’s Foundation Tennis Championships Friday night under the lights at the Sea Oaks Beach & Tennis Club in Vero Beach, Florida.
Wolf held two match points and served for the straight-set win against unranked Joaquim Almeida of Brazil, but lost a second-set tiebreaker 9-7 before retiring from the match down 0-1 after being broken in the first game of the third set. Wolf rolled through the first eight games of the match, leading 6-0, 2-0 before Almeida was able to piece together points at the right time to get on scoreboard and eventually claw his way back in the match, benefitting from increased errors from Wolf.
Wolf, once ranked as high as No. 39 in the world and who reached the fourth round of the Australian Open in 2023, was playing only the fifth tournament since he sat out a year of play due to a severe shoulder injury suffered at the 2025 Delray Beach Open. With an ATP ranking of No. 947, Wolf received a wild card entry by the USTA into Vero Beach, the lowest-level of professional tennis, in the hopes of getting to play more matches to get more into tournament tough shape. He won two singles matches before his 0-6, 7-6 (7), 1-0, retire quarterfinal loss to Almeida.
Almeida is himself an incredible story as he was 28th on the alternate list just to get into the qualifying rounds of this tournament. After signing into the qualifying tournament via phone on Sunday, he was the second-to-last player who got into the 32-player qualifying draw, getting into the tournament without an ATP ranking and without any International Tennis Federation ranking points, only getting in because of his World Tennis Number (the ITF’s version of Universal Tennis Rating), which is used for entries into tournaments when players do not have ATP or ITF ranking points. After winning his first-round qualifying match over Great Britain’s Ying Hou 6-0, 6-0, the former Liberty University standout beat Kian Vakili of the United States 6-3, 3-6 (13-11 in the match tiebreaker) in the final-round of qualifying. In the first round of the main draw, he saved four match points in beating No. 647-ranked Strong Kircheimer and then handed four-time Mardy Fish Sea Oaks “wild card” champion Matthew Segura his first ever loss at the Sea Oaks club (23-0) in the second round.
WATCH the highlights of the Wolf vs. Almeida match here: https://youtu.be/pXndWguDpss?si=Fn6i9HkDpwLjVjic
Almeida will face No. 4 seed Quinn Vandecasteele of Murray, Utah in Saturday’s second semifinal singles match. Top-seed Alex Rybakov of Coral Springs, Florida will face unseeded Liam Krall of Bronxville, N.Y. in the first semifinal scheduled for a noon start. The third match on Stadium on Sunday will be the doubles final between top seeds Ollie Okonkwo of Great Britain and Hunter Heck of Minnesota against Preston Brown of Boca Raton, Fla., and Diego Jarry Fillol of Chile.
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The entire 2026 Mardy Fish Children’s Foundation Tennis Championships is sold out, marking the first time at $15,000-level USTA Pro Circuit, ITF World Tennis Tour event has sold out.
Founded in 2007, the Mardy Fish Children’s Foundation currently supports over 3,000 children per year in 15 elementary schools, six middle schools, and several other community organizations in Indian River County, Florida by funding after-school and summer exercise, nutritional and enrichment programs in a safe environment to prepare them for healthy, productive and successful lives. The Foundation introduced the “Six Healthy Habits” in 2012 which are Get Sleep; Drink Water; Exercise Daily, Eat Healthy; Brush and Floss; Make Friends.
Played annually in Vero Beach since 1995, the Mardy Fish Children’s Foundation Tennis Championships is the fourth longest running active professional tennis tournament in the state of Florida behind the Miami Open (started in 1985), the Delray Beach Open (started in 1993) and the Tallahassee Challenger (started in 1993). Some of the past competitors at the USTA Vero Beach Futures have gone on to succeed at the highest levels of professional tennis, winning major singles and doubles titles, Olympic medals and Davis Cup championships and earning No. 1 world rankings. Andy Roddick, the 2003 U.S. Open champion who attained the world No. 1 ranking and helped the United States win the Davis Cup in 2007, competed in Vero Beach in 1999 in his first ever professional tournament. Thomas Johansson of Sweden, who reached the second round of the Vero Beach Futures in 1995, won the Australian Open seven years later in 2002. Nicolas Massu, the 1998 singles runner-up in Vero Beach, won the singles and doubles gold medals at the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens, Greece, beating Fish in the gold medal singles match. Other notable former competitors in Vero Beach include former world No. 2 Magnus Norman, former world No. 4 Tim Henman, 2016 Wimbledon finalist Milos Raonic, 2021 Wimbledon semifinalist Denis Shapovalov, 2022 and 2024 U.S. Open semifinalist Frances Tiafoe, 2023 Australian Open semifinalist Tommy Paul and new rising star and 2023 U.S. Open semifinalist Ben Shelton. Former Vero Beach competitors have combined to win 19 titles in singles, doubles and mixed doubles at Grand Slam tournaments. Twelve former Vero Beach players have gone on to play Davis Cup for the United States – Roddick, Fish, Taylor Dent, Jared Palmer, Donald Young, Ryan Harrison, Frances Tiafoe, Tommy Paul, Ben Shelton, Reilly Opelka, Alex Michelsen and Ethan Quinn.
