The biggest tennis tournament in the world is being decided in Queens this weekend, and one line of its record book already belongs to a kid from Huntington. Jack Kennedy, 18, walked onto Court 12 at the US Open on August 31 as a main draw player, a thing no wildcard money can buy and no connection can arrange. The only way in is to earn it, and Kennedy earned it the hardest way American tennis offers.

Seven wins in Kalamazoo, and the prize is a ticket to Queens

Every August, the best American juniors gather at Stowe Stadium in Kalamazoo, Michigan for the USTA Boys' 18s National Championship, a tournament that has been running since World War II. The winner gets something no other junior event in the country awards: an automatic wildcard into the men's singles main draw of the US Open.

Kennedy arrived in Kalamazoo last month as the top seed in a field of 192 and won seven straight matches to take the title. It was his third consecutive year reaching the final there, and this time it ended with the trophy in his hands when Jordan Lee, this year's Wimbledon junior champion, retired hurt in the final. Two weeks later, the name Jack Kennedy appeared in the same draw sheet as the best players alive.

A Long Island game, built in Glen Head

Kennedy grew up in Huntington and built his game at Robbie Wagner Tournament Training in Glen Head, which means one of the most promising American players of his generation has been developing his serve about thirty minutes from the stadium where he just made his Grand Slam debut.

The debut itself had been years in the making. Kennedy had played US Open qualifying twice before without breaking through, so this was not a stranger wandering into Flushing Meadows. He knew exactly what the grounds felt like from the outside. This year he got the other side of the fence: a place in the main draw, a match on the official schedule of day one, and a paycheck well into six figures just for taking the court.

His opponent was Lloyd Harris of South Africa, a former US Open quarterfinalist with a decade of professional experience. Harris won in straight sets, 6-4, 6-2, 6-2, and the score tells you what a first Grand Slam match against a grown veteran usually looks like. What the score does not show is the crowd on Court 12, where a cheering section of family and friends who made the trip from Long Island gave an outer court at a Grand Slam a distinctly Huntington accent.

This was not a one-off, and the record says so

The case for Kennedy is not one hot month in Michigan. In April he won his first professional title at a tournament in Boca Raton, and the same month he reached the final of the Savannah Challenger, beating Kei Nishikori along the way. Nishikori has been ranked No. 4 in the world and has played a US Open final. Kennedy was 17 when the season started.

He also owns a Grand Slam title already. Last September, he and his doubles partner Keaton Hance won the US Open boys' doubles championship, and his junior ranking has been as high as the top five in the world. His professional ranking now sits inside the ATP top 400 and has nowhere to go but up.

He is back on the grounds Sunday

Kennedy's tournament is not over. The US Open junior championships begin Sunday, September 6, and he is entered in both singles and doubles, where he and Hance will be defending their title. For anyone who wants to see a Long Island player on the sport's biggest grounds, junior matches are among the most accessible tickets at the Open, played on the same courts with a fraction of the crowds.

After that, the plan is more professional tennis. Kennedy has committed to the University of Virginia, one of the top college programs in the country, but he has pushed his enrollment back to keep playing pro events this fall while his ranking climbs. That is the modern path for a top American prospect: bank the college commitment, chase the ranking while the game is hot, and let the results decide which road to take.

Why this is worth remembering now

Long Island has sent players to the US Open before, but not many, and not often, and rarely with this much runway left. Kennedy is 18. The players who beat teenagers in the first round of majors are usually gone from the tour by the time those teenagers reach their prime, and the teenagers who won Kalamazoo before him include a long list of names that ended up on television every September.

So file the name away. The next time the US Open rolls around and a Kennedy from Huntington shows up in the draw, you will be able to say you knew about him back when his whole cheering section could fit around Court 12.