Rhett Purcell

The ITF tour had its first tournaments in New Zealand for several years early in 2020, with the men's event in Te Anau being the first of the new season. Eliminated in the second round of singles, Purcell and Calum Puttergill were the second seeds in the doubles, losing to top seeds Luca Margaroli and Andrea Vavassori in the final after saving a match point in the deciding tie-break. Purcell was unlucky enough to draw former World No. 21 Leonardo Mayer in his first round qualifying singles match in Auckland, losing in three sets. Given a wild card into the doubles with Cameron Norrie, they drew third seeds Rohan Bopanna and Henri Kontinen first up, and lost in straight sets.

Purcell has a career high ATP singles ranking of 749, achieved on 10 September 2018, and a best doubles ranking of 382, reached on 19 August 2019. He made his debut for New Zealand at the Davis Cup in September 2019, winning his first match.

Purcell's second ITF doubles title came in Luzhou, China, early in June 2018, this time with Sami Reinwein. Anning continued to be the scene of milestones for Purcell, the next one when he followed being runner-up in the doubles final with victory the following day in the singles, beating Zheng Weigiang in the final. A week later, at the same venue, he added another doubles title, this time with another New Zealander, Olly Sadler.

Purcell qualified for his first senior main draw at an ITF Futures tournament in Anning, China, in April 2015, but lost in the first round. His first main draw win wasn't until March 2016, again in Anning. The first tournament where he got past the first round was in Thủ Dầu Một, Vietnam, the following October. He made it all the way to the semi-finals before losing to Masato Shiga from Japan.

Purcell's first experience of professional tennis was being given a wild card into qualifying for the 2014 ASB Classic in Auckland, where he beat Eric Sock (elder brother of Jack) in the first round, but lost heavily to subsequent French Open doubles winner Michael Venus in the second. This was also his final year as a junior, and he won both singles and doubles titles at the NZ ITF Junior Summer Championships the following month. Stepping up to Grade 1 just a few weeks later, he and fellow New Zealander Alex Klintcharov won the doubles title at the 25th Mitsubishi-Lancer International in Manila, and he was the beaten finalist in the singles.

Rhett Purcell (born 6 February 1996) is a New Zealand tennis player, although he represented the United Kingdom through parental descent from the start of his junior career in 2010 until mid-October 2017.