The Spanish whiz-kid rocketed to the fringe of the ATP top 200 this week after reaching the the final of the Hungarian Open Challenger tournament in Budapest.
Kuhn pocketed a €5,400 cheque as runner-up to Vasek Pospisil and also vindicated his decision to cut short his 2017 campaign in order to concentrate on developing his all-round game.
Like most Spanish players, the blond six-footer from Torrevieja is most at home on clay courts but a winter of intense hard-court training paid off big-time with a stunning 6-3 7-6 victory over top seed Marton Fucsovic, who reached the last 16 in the recent Australian Open before falling to the one and only Roger Federer.
Kuhn, nine years Fucsovic's junior, now holds a 2-0 record over the world number 62 after beating the Hungarian Davis Cup star on his way to winning the 2017 Sparkassen Open in Germany.
The 48 ranking points Nico picked up for reaching the singles final lifted him to 204 in the world and to 14 in the Under-21 rankings - well within sight of the prestigious NextGen finals in Milan in November.
Kuhn, son of a German father and Russian mother, finally met his match in a three-set final shootout with Pospisil, who last year beat Andy Murray at Indian Wells. Pospisil, who has been as high as 25 in the world rankings, triumphed 7-6,3-6 6-3 after a fierce see-saw battle for the title.
As a bonus, unseeded Kuhn and his 17-year-old arch-rival Felix Auger-Aliassime teamed up for the first time to win the Budapest doubles against all the odds. Nico and Canadian Aliassime, who is already in the men's top 200, have vied for the status of best player born in the 21st century ever since the 2015 Junior Davis Cup final, in which Canada beat a Kuhn-inspired Germany team.
Playing together for the first time, the unseeded 17-year-olds stormed to a 6-2 2-6 11-9 victory over top seeds Marin and Tomislav Draganja. It earned Kuhn and Aliassime €2,950 and lifted Kuhn into the ATP doubles rankings for the first time at 604, more than 1,000 places above the published entry level. The partnership also looks set to become a regular fixture at any tournament in which the two whiz-kids compete.
Kuhn, for one, is all for extending the NextGen finals to an Under-21 doubles championship in Milan.
"I already have my partner,'' he said as he and the 6ft 4in Aliassime celebrated their unlikely success.
