The 17-year-old, who has been on trial with the Monte-Carlo Tennis Academy with a view to becoming a full-time member in the New Year, was intending to join Anna Fitzpatrick, Ana Veselinovic and Ilija Vucic at the recent training block in Florida but was prevented from doing so because of a delay with his entry visa.

It meant Kontinen was forced to remain in Finland but his fortune changed when he was granted wild cards into the singles qualifying and main draw doubles at the Helsinki Challenger and went on to reach the doubles final with countryman Harry Heliovaara.

“It is not very often that a player of his age reaches the finals of doubles at this level of Challenger,” said MCTA Director of Coaching David Sammel.

“This certainly qualifies as one of those ‘everything happens for a reason’ stories. After playing well in reaching the second round of the singles losing a close match to top seed Martin Fischer he then proceeded to make final of the doubles which will rocket him to No. 701 on the ATP tour from no ranking.”