It’s not often that you can get excited watching a player who has never been ranked in the top 150, but that is exactly how you feel when you see Nick Kyrgios play. The 18-year-old Australian plays a strong baseline game, and his unexpected power is fun to see.

But it’s more than just Kyrgios’ style of play that we want to see. The kid is a talent that we don’t often see, and it is translating very well even against higher competition.

The first hint of Kyrgios’ potential came at last year’s French Open. After getting the Australian wildcard into the tournament, he upset world No. 52 Radek Stepanek in three tiebreaks. Kyrgios had held exactly one Challenger title to his name at that stage, and yet he won his first-ever Grand Slam match against a veteran opponent.

Kyrgios says that hard courts and grass are his favorite surfaces, but his results on clay belie that statement. He defeated Stepanek at Roland Garros last year in his first Tour-level match on clay. This year, he just returned at the clay Challenger in Sarasota, Florida from an elbow injury that had kept him out for two months.

Sarasota forms part of a series of three clay Challengers in the United States in April that offer an opportunity for lower-level players to get good competition on clay heading into Roland Garros. Kyrgios decided to return from his injury at these tournaments. At Sarasota, his first tournament back, he won five matches and the title. In fact, the Aussie is a perfect 6-0 in Challenger matches on clay in his career. His powerful forehand has been too much for his Challenger opponents to handle on the clay.

The most important thing for Kyrgios now, though, is gaining experience and stamina. The only real way to learn how to play with top players is playing with top players. As Kyrgios gets more experience playing with talented players on the Challenger and ATP World Tours, his ranking will continue to rise and—more importantly—he will continue to improve as a player.

Kyrgios is playing in Savannah this week and plans to compete in the third American clay Challenger in Tallahassee next week. The Aussie is clearly talented enough to compete with and defeat players at this level. He is still not ranked high enough to directly get in to main draws of even ATP 250 tournaments or to try to qualify for the Masters 1000 tournaments. But he will have a chance to attempt to qualify for the ATP 250 events in Nice and Dusseldorf during the week before Roland Garros.

Kyrgios is a talent to watch, though. He will most likely receive the Australian wildcard to the French Open and, with the right draw, could do some real damage. He doesn’t have the five-set experience to expect too deep a run, but you will be hearing his name in Paris.