San Diego’s Nakashima overcomes disastrous 2023 to have phenomenal 2024

Tenerife, Spain. Pau, France. Ottignies-Louvain-La-Neuve, Belgium.

These are not cities Brandon Nakashima, nor any top tennis players, would normally ever visit. They are the extreme outposts of the sport, hosting small minor-league-level events each year.

What in the name of La Jolla was Nakashima doing there this year, then? This is a kid who’d known nothing but success in his career, starting with legendary coach Angel Lopez in San Diego, through the upper levels of junior tennis, until breaking through on the ATP Tour and landing in the Top 50 in 2022.

Well, careers in this sport are far from linear, and in 2023 Nakashima hit bottom, or as close to bottom as he’d like to see. The losses piled up; he was defeated in the first round of all four Grand Slam tournaments, and his ranking plummeted into the triple digits.

What’s a player to do when his confidence and results are at an all-time low? It was time for a re-set. Nakashima, 23, hired two new coaches, former Top ATP pros Davide Sanguinetti and Mariano Puerta.

And together they decided that to rebuild this former star, going to the Challenger tournaments in places listed above was the way to go.

“It was a new, tough experience that I had to go through, and those guys helped me with that,” Nakashima said. “They reassured me that every player goes through ups and downs and that the biggest thing was for me to get some wins and some confidence back. So playing the Challengers was the way to go.”

To say it worked would be to traffic in major understatement. Winning matches at the Challenger level led to renewed confidence, and once he was back up to the top ATP level, Nakashima has soared. He has beaten Top 20 players like Andrey Rublev (twice), Holger Rune, Tommy Paul, and Lorenzo Musetti.

At the U.S. Open here at the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center, Nakashima had his best career result at America’s Slam. He crushed Rune in the first round, then in Round 3 against Musetti in front of thousands of screaming fans on Court 17, he outlasted the No. 18 seed to reach his first Round of 16 at the Open.

Nakashima then took a set off No. 4 Alexander Zverev before falling in four.
Still, the recent success has vaulted him to a career-high ranking of No. 40 and put him squarely back in the conversation of young American tennis stars, which includes Frances Tiafoe, Taylor Fritz, and Tommy Paul.

“He’s a better tennis player now than he was before,” said Martin Blackman, the general manager of player development for the U.S. Tennis Association (USTA). “Even Andre Agassi dropped down and played Challengers once. It was so smart for Brandon to do that, because confidence comes only from winning matches, no matter what level you’re winning at.”

For Nakashima, who still calls San Diego home, the coaching changes led to mental and physical changes.

He said from a mental standpoint, Sanguinetti and Puerta helped him visualize success better and didn’t harp on what went wrong in 2023. And technically, Sanguinetti said, they rebuilt parts of Nakashima’s game.

“He improved his forehand and he’s improved physically a lot,” Sanguinetti said after the win over Musetti here. “We know he has a great serve and a good backhand, and he strikes the ball so well. He’s come a long way.”

Nakashima, who said he was first taught the game by his grandfather, is now at the rankings spot where he can get into major tournaments, and could work himself into the Top 30, and a seed at January’s Australian Open, with a good autumn.

The crowd roaring his name and hooting and hollering for him all week certainly will remind him that he’s not in Pau anymore.

“Definitely been a very positive week, but not satisfied,” Nakashima said. “Proud to get a lot of good wins, and it’s a good feeling, but have to keep pushing forward.”

Photo courtesy USTA