Brandon Nakashima is hiding in plain sight—and into the US Open's third round

NEW YORK—The tennis hype machine is a conceptual device, but it can malfunction like a mechanical one that misses a stitch, loses a screw, or pops a leak. That may help explain why Brandon Nakashima, the 6’2” 23-year-old from San Diego with a wicked backhand and an all-American, multi-cultural background, seems to have fallen through the cracks in our sports consciousness.

Nakashima, who advanced to the third round of the US Open on Wednesday with a neat, straight-sets win over France’s Arthur Cazaux, is heading for a clash with No. 18 seed and Wimbledon semifinalist Lorenzo Musetti. Nakashima, currently ranked No. 50, is part of a well-publicized generation of American players, yet upon hearing his name a fan might be prone to ask, “Who the heck is that?”

This does not appear to bother Nakashima, who just turned 23 last month. He knows he did himself no favors by experiencing a rankings freefall early last year, plummeting from a career-best No. 43 in October 2022 to No. 151, in just six months.

But lately, he’s come roaring back—albeit in his own quiet way.

“I don’t feel left out or anything,” Nakashima said after his win, referring to the generation, led by Taylor Fritz, that has five men ranked in the ATP Top 25. “Those are our top guys and they deserve all the credit they get. I still have work to do to get into the same position, but they paved the way.”

Nakashima was on the cusp of joining the likes of Tommy Paul and Frances Tiafoe at the start of last year, but a knee injury kept him from playing as many matches as he’d hoped. His confidence bottomed out, so much so that he failed to win a single match at a Grand Slam event in 2023.

“I was playing well, I just couldn’t get past round one,” he told the ATP media team in July. “You need those moments where you play better and gain confidence to win those [tough] matches.”

Reduced to playing Challengers in order to build momentum, Nakashima also put together a new coaching team last October, led by the former Top 50 pro David Sanguinetti. An Italian, Sanguinetti seems to have the recipe for the secret sauce fueling the surge in his homeland tennis talent.

“They (the team) gave me a lot of perspective on what every player goes through in their career,” Nakashima said. “They definitely gave me a lot of insights through the ups and downs, just to keep working hard and managing those moments.”

A key element in the strategy to rehabilitate Nakashima was matches—lots of them. That meant taking his lumps on the ATP Challenger Tour, where Nakashima built a record of 26-8 in the first half of this year. He also moonlighted on the main tour, to log a total of 78 matches so far this year (54-24)—24 more than No. 1-ranked Jannik Sinner.

Credit Sanguinetti’s team with recognizing that Nakashima needs a lot of match play, and trusting that he has the muscular frame—and game—to carry the load.

“I did a lot of hard work off the court and in the gym,” he said. “It’s been a long year on the tour, but we kept pushing through.”

“I got a lot of wins under my belt,” Nakashima added, referring to his results early in  the year. “Even if it was at the lower level, getting the wins, rising a bit in the rankings, it all  helped my confidence. For me, it’s a matter of staying consistent with my game.”

Nakashima found his groove alright. At Wimbledon, he made the third round. But he really hit his stride on the hard courts last month. He edged back into the Top 50 partly on the strength of four wins over Top 25 rivals, including highly celebrated compatriots Fritz and Paul.

“Yeah, those definitely helped me a lot with confidence,” Nakashima said. “Whether it’s off the court or in practices, I’m still just kind of getting that confidence back.”

Nakashima has flown under the radar in more ways than one. There is no interview transcript of his post-match chats since November 2022, when Nakashima upended Jiri Lehecka in the championship match at the ATP Next Gen finals. Granted, that event is an exhibition for the best 21-and-under performers, but its winners’ roll is impressive: Stefanos Tsitsipas and the current ATP Top 2, Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz, both also won the event.

In that tournament, which features a streamlined scoring system, Nakashima played 16 tiebreakers—and won every one of them. That year, he also won his first (and thus far only) ATP title, on home soil in San Diego. He also beat Grigor Dimitrov at the US Open, Denis Shapovalov on grass, and he punched through to the third round at Roland Garros.

INTERVIEW: Brandon Nakashima on defeating Tommy Paul, in Montreal ⤵️

At the time, Nakashima seemed to be on the glide path into the elite cadre of ATP players, but things went sideways. When he found himself back on the Challenger circuit following his slump in 2022-23, it was something of a homecoming.

Back when he made his Next Gen breakthrough, Nakashima was bullish on the importance and value of the Challenger events: “I think for any player that's trying to make it on the pro tour I think it's a great stepping stone to get all those Challenger matches. The level I think is super high. I think it's a good building block to win those Challengers.”

Little did Nakashima know how prescient his words would prove three years later, when acting on them put him back on the path to the main tour—where he’s unsung, but hiding in plain sight.