Category: Story

May 8, 2025

“My brother and I would play with balloons, setting up the couch as a net, and just smack it back and forth. Then every Sunday night, my mom and I would play against my brother and dad – a little mixed doubles action. From there, I just fell in love with the game. My brother playing in college and my mom being a tennis pro, I always grew up in the tennis environment. I just had great role models to look up to, and I’m really lucky to have them. When you break the top 100 as a tennis player, I think that’s a huge goal that everyone has. When you do it, it’s this huge weight lifted off your back. When that happened for me, it was a huge milestone. From there, I was into so many more WTA main draws and had more opportunities. I think comparison is the thief of joy, in tennis and in life. It’s super hard, because we’re out here, seeing the same players every week. It’s natural to compare, but I think the biggest thing is to just focus on your journey. What are your goals? What are you trying to work on (more…)

April 30, 2025

“My dad’s a tennis coach, and I have an older brother and sister who played a bit. They were both very athletic, but whenever they were on the tennis court, I used to go pick up balls for them. I was just eager to get out there. My whole family’s from Japan and moved over before I was born. I was born in Sydney and Australia’s all I’ve ever known, but there were a lot of cultural things I learned. My mum and dad would cook Japanese food at home, and they tried to make sure I knew the language. I try to embrace the positives of both cultures, and it’s been a big part of my identity. I always felt like I had the level and potential to play professionally and do well. But my mum was pretty big on me going to college. She was worried about academics and making sure I had something to fall back on. For me, I knew a few years of getting good work under my belt would be good, too. UNC was the place for me. There’s no better place, and I learned so much there. Playing tennis at the pro level, (more…)

April 24, 2025

“Growing up, we had two tennis courts in front of our house. When I was a little kid, I remember watching all the other kids playing, so my parents signed me up for the tennis school. And from then, I loved it. I didn’t even try football, hockey – it was tennis or nothing for me. Since the beginning, I did quite well. It started with playing a couple of tournaments in the Czech Republic. Once I got to the point where I was playing in other countries, or starting to play internationally, I started to realize that I was doing pretty well, playing pretty well against the guys that were my age around the world. The transition from the juniors to the Futures was tough, though. When I started to play at a higher level, I quickly realized there are no free points. In the juniors, you can get away with a few mistakes from your opponent and take advantage of them being down mentally, but in the Futures, everyone is super focused. It helped me realize that the key to that next level is the mental element and your focus. Even though I’m only nineteen, I feel fortunate (more…)

April 17, 2025

“My first memory of playing tennis was playing a doubles tournament for kids and their moms. I have an older brother, so he played doubles with my mom and I played with my mom’s friend. I lost, but I still remember the moment. My brother wanted to go pro and my dad was a tennis player in Japan, so I said, “Okay, I want to do it too.” I think I was around 10 years old when I made that decision. There were definitely moments where I wanted to do other things. My dad was a very tough man. If we wanted to do something different, like playing soccer, baseball, those kinds of things, my dad would say, “No, you can’t do this. If you want to be a player, just play tennis.” So I did. Sometimes it was tough, but there were lots of moments that were enjoyable as well. Im remember playing the Junior French Open and after I lost, I called my mom and said, “I can’t do this anymore.” But it’s ups and downs. At the end of the day, even after losses, you still love tennis and that’s the reason I can stand here. Even (more…)

April 10, 2025

“I was lucky. My first main coach, Scott, always believed in me. He always thought I had the potential. Did I believe that? I don’t know. Probably not, but I was the guy that always took it one step at a time. I was good in juniors, but I wasn’t insane. I wasn’t winning two slams. I knew I was going to college for a couple of years and then I was going to play afterwards. It’s interesting seeing this core group of Americans that are a little younger than me. I don’t take it personally, not always being in the conversation. Those guys, Fritz, Tommy, they’re top 10 in the world now, Foe is making semis. Just Sinner, Alcaraz, all these guys, the level they’re producing is crazy. Again, I don’t view that as a negative. If I were to be making deep runs in tournaments consistently, making the semis of slam, yeah, there would be more. But I haven’t done that, so I can’t really expect that. One thing about me, is it did take me a while to break through. I don’t really think that helps you in terms of the spotlight. If you’re 25 when you (more…)

April 2, 2025

“I’ve definitely struggled at times with my identity. I was born in New York, but I never really lived there. I spent my life in Japan until I was 13, then we all moved to Spain. I’ll always have that ‘Daniel’ on my last name, which if I’m in Japan, people are like, “Oh, where’s that from?” And when I lived in Spain, I did struggle quite a bit in the first few years with micro-racism. I ended up being very fond of Spain, but it was tough the first couple of years. My dad really wanted to move because he was in a very typical Japanese corporate life, and it was killing him. He was the one really passionate about tennis, so we followed his idea. It was a busy childhood. I’d play tennis all day and then study the rest of the time. I barely had days off and didn’t really get to play much with my friends. It’s crazy when I think about it now and those are things that I do regret a bit, but they weren’t really in my control. My sister was the talented one in the beginning. I was good enough to tag (more…)

March 20, 2025

“I wrote a note to my parents when I was seven years old trying to negotiate that I didn’t need to go to school. I just needed to go on a tennis court, because I wanted to become a tennis professional. For whatever reason, my dad threw me into judo at a young age, but I never really liked it. My dad was a tennis coach, but didn’t actually really like tennis growing up himself. He somehow just got thrown out there and tried to make a living. Every time I went to the tennis club, though, my parents had to fight to get me off the court. I always knew what I wanted to become. There was never a question of going to college if I didn’t perform well in the juniors. College didn’t really exist in my mind. I knew as soon as I finished high school, I was going to go play on the tour and go after my dreams. Top 10 was always a big dream. Of course, winning a Grand Slam would have been the ultimate dream – that’s what you play for. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen. Struggles are inherently a part of the sport. (more…)

January 8, 2025

“Tennis was big in my family. My mother’s family were all real tennis fanatics. It was inevitable that when I was old enough to hold a racquet, I would take tennis lessons. But when I got sent to tennis day camp, I wasn’t very good at all. By the time I was a preteen, I could see that there was a ceiling as to how good I could be and decided it wasn’t going to be a part of my life anymore. I really didn’t think about or follow tennis much until sometime in 2018 when I happened to turn on the US Open, and I watched the final between Osaka and Serena. As you know, it was a controversial match because the umpire accused Serena of receiving coaching from the sidelines. Because I hadn’t followed the sport in so long, I didn’t know about this rule. Immediately, it struck me as a very cinematic situation. For whatever reason, it started to percolate in my mind, like, “What if you really needed to speak to that person and what if it was something beyond tennis? Maybe even between the two of you? Or with the person on the other side (more…)

December 30, 2024

“My mom, she’s a former number one, multiple-time Grand slam champion, but I never really felt pressure from her at all. You’d see other parents growing up, and they’d be like, “Oh, you’re going to be a professional tennis player.” But my family wasn’t like that, it was more about playing and having fun.  I realized tennis could be a pathway for me probably a lot later than most people. I played Little League Baseball until I was probably 11 or 12. Basically every sport at some point, but I had to decide eventually which one I liked the most. It wasn’t until basically high school where I really started doing the full gym, full practices multiple times a day and started working extremely hard at becoming a pro player.  With my mom, I think the pressure was low because she realized how hard it is to be at the top of any sport. There are also so many things that can go wrong. Both my parents, but especially my mom, were very adamant that we take education seriously, play a variety of sports and, basically, have fun.  There was never any discouragement to not take tennis seriously, though, either. (more…)

December 22, 2024

“I think the first time I was labeled as one of the next American young players was when I was 15. I never felt a ton of pressure from it, to be honest, because I never really had true belief in myself at that age.  Juniors is all fun and games. You get to travel, play in the slams…everything is just easy in a way. Then you play college, which is another step. Then you start playing on the tour, and that’s a whole different story. There’s just no easy days, no easy matches — everything has to be earned. Once you get that slap in the face, you start to figure out that you’re really going to have to endure and suffer a lot of obstacles.  I’ve struggled a lot with injuries, and playing pro is already tough when you’re healthy. When you’re not healthy, you just don’t have a chance. It’s stressful to be injured, because your tennis career isn’t forever. If you’re lucky you get 12, 15 years max, but 10 is probably more realistic.  There have been moments where I’ve questioned what I’m doing, but I was quick to put an end to that in my mind. (more…)