Learner Tien, aged 19 and in the round of 16, speaks softly, swings smoothly, and solves problems

Learner Tien speaks to interviewers the way he plays tennis: without a lot of wasted motion.

On Saturday, the 19-year-old was told that that the last player his age to reach the fourth round at the Australian Open was “a man named Rafael Nadal.”

When the roars from the crowd died down, Tien said, “I don’t think I can start comparing myself to him now, but yeah, that’s really cool.”

Two days before, after his epic win over Daniil Medvedev around 3:00 a.m., Tien was informed that he had won the first fifth-set tiebreaker of the tournament.

“I know I made it a lot harder than maybe it could have been,” he said. “But whatever.”

Now that Tien seems destined to be a tour regular, he was asked what he likes to do in his down time.

Tien said he plays with Fortnite with fellow pro Alex Michelsen, has a “long list of shows” he wants to get through, and then finished with this:

“Time off site is pretty much spent in bed, doing nothing.”

These answers may be terse, but they shouldn’t be mistaken for rudeness or thoughtlessness. Tien gets his point across, usually with a smile, and then shuts up. He seems to have the quiet focus of a prodigy, filtered through the laid-back demeanor of his native Southern California.

Tien’s parents came to the U.S. from Vietnam after the war—his mom on a boat that was mobbed by pirates—and settled in Irvine, Calif. His mother is a math teacher, and he was named after her profession; his sister, Justice, got her name from her lawyer father. (For more on Tien and his upbringing, watch the YouTube clip above.)

When Learner was asked whether he wanted to be a tennis pro, his answer was consistent—and as concise as you might expect.

“I’ll see how far I can go.”

Tien has gone much farther, much faster than he likely expected. By 16, he had graduated from high school, and won the prestigious 18-and-unders at Kalamazoo. After a brief stint at USC, he joined the pro tour. Last fall, he made his presence known at the Next Gen Finals, where he beat three higher-ranked players, Arthur Fils, Jakub Mensik and Michelsen, before losing in the final to Joao Fonseca.

The Australian Open has taken him to another level entirely. While he’s excited to be in the second week, he also spent a week surviving the qualifying event. In his first qualie match, Tien was down a set and a break. In his first-round main-draw match, he was down two sets to one to Camilo Ug Caraballi of Argentina, before winning 6-4 in the fifth. In his second-round match, against fifth-seeded Medvedev, Tien won the first two sets, lost the next two, looked dead in the water to start the fifth, but somehow found a way to outplay and out-think one of the game’s craftiest tacticians down the stretch.

“Feels pretty crazy to be in the second week,” is how Tien succinctly describes it.

Maybe more interesting than Tien’s precocious results is the way he goes about getting them.

At a time when every new star seems taller than the last, Tien is a modest 5’11”.

I don’t think I can start comparing myself to him now, but yeah, that’s really cool. Learner Tien, after learning that the last player his age to reach the fourth round at the Australian Open was “a man named Rafael Nadal.”

At a time when a monster serve is thought to be essential to success, Tien doesn’t generate much in the way of M.P.H.s, and often seems content just to flip it in and start the point.

At a time when speed, athleticism and arm speed are more paramount then ever, Tien is a classically smooth ball-striker from both wings, with nothing extraneous to his strokes.

At a time when top young players like Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner hit the ball hard, harder and hardest, Tien builds points patiently—almost dully—but with a tactical sixth sense and a knack for when to change speeds. He’ll bide his time, slice a series of forehands into the middle of the court, look like he’s content to sit back and defend, and then suddenly turn on the gas and rocket a forehand into the corner.

Tien’s father was a teaching pro when he first came to the States, and he and his mother met on court. Maybe it makes sense that he would have the game in his DNA. Maybe it makes sense that he’s a problem solver like his math teacher mom.

Many of us believed that Tien would struggle to bounce back from his early-morning win over Medvedev. Many of us were wrong. Tien walked on court for his third-round match with Courentin Moutet with a bright smile and a quick wave. By the start of the third set, it was the Frenchman who was physically worse for wear.

INTERVIEW: Tien reveals Moutet said he'd "keep trying just for me" ⤵️

Tien won, 7-6 (10), 6-3, 6-3.

“I kind of had that in mind, the inevitable drop off after a big match,” said Tien, who didn’t get to sleep until 7:00 A.M. on the morning of his Medvedev win. “I kind of gave myself time to process the match and take it all in. I was able to do that pretty well, putting that match behind me but also taking some confidence from the win.”

Tien is proof that tennis can be played, and won, in many different ways, and that the U.S. can produce many different types of pros. It should be fun to see him let his racquet do the talking in the years ahead.