Northport’s Cannon Kingsley loses in French Open boys tournament

Cannon Kingsley of Northport lost in the second round of the French Open boys tournament on Monday, falling to ninth seed Nicolas Mejia of Colombia. After winning the first set and up a break in the second, Kingsley lost, 1-6, 6-4, 6-4.

“I won the first set pretty handily, but he stepped up his game and I guess I wasn’t quite prepared for it,” said Kingsley, who was also was up a break in the third set. “In the third set I really didn’t have my legs under me. I started cramping in my left calf. But I still had a lot of chances in the second and third sets and didn’t take advantage of them.”

Kingsley got into the tournament through a wild card given to the USTA from the French Open. Kingsley won a clay court event in Santa Croce, Italy, in May and has shown impressive results since returning earlier this year from a stress fracture in his right foot.

Going into the French, Kingsley, 17, was ranked No. 32 in the world by the International Tennis Federation and should get direct entry into the Wimbledon and U.S. Open juniors plus the USTA boys national championship in Kalamazoo, Michigan, preceding the U.S. Open.

“It’s pretty cool to think I can play Wimbledon and the U.S. Open,” Kingsley said. “The experience here at my first Grand Slam has been fantastic.”

He gets to stay on a little longer in Paris, playing boys doubles with Brandon Nakashima.