American teen Chirico to break into Top 100 following impressive run in Madrid

Not bad for a player who almost didn't get into the tournament.

Louisa Chirico, 19, will break into the Top 100 following her run to the Madrid semifinals.

She arrived at the tournament not even knowing if she was ranked high enough to take part in qualifying.

"Well, it's been pretty cool from the beginning, really," she told the press in Madrid following her quarterfinal win over Daria Gavrilova. "I actually wasn't in the draw. I wasn't in qualies when I landed in Madrid ... We landed 10 minutes [before entries were announced.] We were like, 'Can you call the supervisor? Am I in?’

"[I was] lucky enough to make it in and then qualify, and get to where I am now. So it's been a really exciting ride so far."

From there, she defeated Monica Niculescu and Ana Ivanovic, and caught a break when Victoria Azarenka withdrew from their third-round match. She beat Gavrilova in the quarterfinals before Dominika Cibulkova stopped her in the semis.

But unsurprisingly, she was still very happy with her week.

Chirico, despite her fairy-tale run in Spain and improved ranking, will still have to play qualifying matches.

With entries having been decided six weeks ago, she will not get straight into the Rome or French Open main draw.

A year ago, the teenager played USTA wild-card pro circuit events and earned a wild card into the French Open, but decided she wanted to take a step up to WTA tournaments.

"This year [I] decided to come here and get some matches on the red clay, and play these bigger tournaments before," she said. "So I knew I was going to not make the main draw of the French."

She will now go to Rome, and then will try to qualify for the French Open.

"I would much rather be here playing, obviously, so I'm happy with the decision,” she said.

A player who has not received as much attention as some of the other American up-and-comers, she will leave Madrid with a higher profile.

"The other players can have the spotlight,” she said, according to *The New York Times*. “I don’t really care about that. With good results comes more attention, obviously, so I’m going to try to keep it one step at a time and keep my goals process-oriented. That’s the biggest thing for me."

She began the week at No. 130 in the rankings.