Recapping First ATP Event & What's Next

Before diving into the talking about the specifics from my matches at the San Francisco Challenger, I quickly want to let all of my readers know how appreciative I am of all of your support and this amazing opportunity to compete against world-class players. This event taught me a great deal about professional tennis and also gave me a lot of perspective and gratitude in regards to the journey that I am on.

Singles Qualifying Match:

Coming into the match, I felt excited, nervous, and hungry to compete; as this was the first time I would be playing in front of friends and family since playing college tennis as a CMS Stag. As we stepped on the court, I remember thinking to myself how appreciative I was of this opportunity. I went up against a former top Stanford player who was ranked as high as 1273 on the tour. I tried to focus on my footwork and breathing at the beginning of the match to offset the nerves.

I quickly got broken in the first game, but I did not let that stop me. I came back right away to get a key break and then held serve to go up 2-1. The nerves began to go away and I felt myself “dialed in”. Tactically I was doing just about everything I wanted, hitting over 70% forehands, coming in to net to finish points, and mixing up my serve and shot selection. I kept riding the momentum to go up 4-1. I am now up 4-1, 0-40, with 3 break points. I stop and want to reflect here because instead of doubling down and earning that break point, I could feel myself thinking that I had already won the game. That mental lapse cost me as I missed two relatively easy returns and did not consolidate that break. Fast forward to 5-2, my opponent is serving and I have my first of two set point opportunities. The first set point I roll a backhand return short in the court and then proceed to cautiously hit two more backhands short in the court before he punishes me and rips a forehand down the line that I cannot get back. I look back at this point and am disappointed because up until that moment, I played to win; yet I let results and pressure impact me forcing me to play passively. I did not convert the next set point and lost that set in a super tiebreaker.

Instead of quickly resetting in the second set, I still felt myself thinking back on what went wrong in the first set. I got down 4-1, but fought my way back to down 3-5 with opportunities to break back. Ultimately, I lost 7-6, 6-3.

Throughout this past six months and especially in this ATP Challenger Event, I have realized that everyone competes until the very end. No one is going to just stop trying or let a game go when they are down 0-40. As a junior and college player there may have been times where I could get away with just “rolling” the ball back in play and being tentative, but at this level if you leave a ball short, you flat out get punished for it.  Even though the outcome did not turn out like I wanted, this was still one of the best matches I felt I have played so far in my career. As cliché as it may sound, I continue to “trust the process” and have a lot of confidence in my ability, but also am always humbled by what I still need to improve.

Doubles Main Draw Match against Dennis Novikov & Goncalo Oliveira:

I was lucky enough to compete in my first ever ATP Main Draw event alongside Nick Chappell, who played #1 at TCU all four years and is currently ranked in the top 500 in the world in doubles. Nick and I went up against two players in the top 200 in the world in singles respectively, which was an eye opening experience. These two guys were hands down the best players I have ever gone up against! Simply put, they came up with bigger shots, better volleys, and played the deciding deuce points a lot better than we did.

That said, I still felt like Nick and I competed really well and had our opportunities in the match. Reflecting back, I learned a lot about movement, court positioning, and strategy in doubles at this level. I plan to work a lot more on moving into the court on all of my shots, but especially when at the net doing a better job of being more of a presence up there. Even though we lost 6-2, 6-1 the match felt a lot more competitive than the score may show!

There were a lot of great points in the match from both teams, but I had to include this one awesome lob winner I hit early in the second set. GO TO 17:55 IN VIDEO CLIP TO WATCH POINT

What’s Next --> Greece:

I am excited to share with you all that I will be headed to Greece in a couple weeks to compete in some ITF Futures on the island of Crete. I am planning to train hard these next couple weeks on court and in the gym to be as prepared as I can be. Hopefully, I will pick up my first ATP point in Greece, but again I continue to trust the process and try not to let results get in the way of what it is I am doing. I look forward to updating everyone next week when I am back in Florida!

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