CONTRIBUTED BY AU ATHLETICS
AUBURN —
Auburn tennis alumnus Tim Puetz and partner Miyu Kato captured the mixed doubles championship at the French Open Thursday morning, June 8, on the clay courts at Roland Garros in Paris.
Paired together for the first time in this tournament, they came from behind to win 4-6, 6-4, 10-6 over Bianca Andreescu and Michael Venus. The duo did not drop a set in their matches en route to the final.
“They had a breakpoint at 4-3 to go up 5-3,” Puetz said after the match. “With Mikey serving after, it would have been very tough to come back from that. We just hung in there, believed in ourselves and did really well. We played a really good super-tiebreak in the end. I think I speak for both of us that we are really, really happy to be called Grand Slam champion.”
This is the first Grand Slam title for Puetz and the fourth for an Auburn alumnus. Andreas Mies was part of the French Open championship duo in men’s doubles in 2019 and 2020, and Stephen Huss won a Wimbledon men’s doubles title in 2005.
Puetz, Auburn’s first men’s tennis Olympian who competed in the Tokyo Olympics, was a four-year letterman at Auburn (2008-11). The product of Usingen, Germany, was a two-year All-American, advancing to the NCAA doubles semifinals in 2009 paired with Alexey Tsyrenov, and then was an NCAA singles semifinalist in 2010.
A first-team all-SEC honoree, Puetz was an ITA Southern Region champion in both singles and doubles and, along with Tsyrenov, won the consolation doubles title at the ITA All-American Championships. He posted 93 career wins in singles and 89 in doubles at Auburn.
Puetz is currently ranked No. 24 worldwide in doubles and has won seven previous career ATP event titles. He and Kevin Krawietz were quarterfinalists in men’s doubles this year at Roland Garros. Mies and partner Matwe Middelkoop advanced to the French Open men’s doubles semifinals, where they lost 6-4, 7-5 Thursday morning.