Altadena native Tristan Boyer, whose home was evacuated during the wildfires, is playing for something bigger, and concentrating harder

Tristan Boyer is nearly as active between points as he is during them. He shakes his racquet. He fist-pumps. He hops on his toes. He gestures toward his coaches. He says “Let’s go!” and “Come on!” in English when he wins points. Then, when he loses them, he says other things in Spanish. Things the chair umpire, and his family, don’t need to understand.

“I think when I was super upset, I maybe kept it in Spanish a little bit just in case,” said Boyer after winning his first Grand Slam main-draw match, in five sets over Federico Coria on Tuesday at the Australian Open.

It’s harder, the 23-year-old Californian said with a laugh, to avoid getting a code violation when he speaks in English.

Boyer is one of those rare birds, a bilingual American. He may also be the only tour player to have studied mechanical engineering at Stanford. And he’s one of the few from the U.S. to do most of his training in Buenos Aires. Right now, though, Boyer may be best-known for where he comes from, and where he still lives for half the year: Altadena, California, the town at the epicenter of the Los Angeles wildfires.

“My dad had to evacuate our house,” says Boyer, who is in Australia with his mother and grandfather. “Luckily it’s OK, but we have friends and family who are homeless. It’s really, really devastating to see.”

Altadena is where Boyer would wait with his racquet for his father, Chris, to get home from work so they could hit balls in the driveway. It’s where, at 12, he met Zibu Ncube of Zimbabwe, the coach who helped him rise into the Top 10 in the world junior rankings.

Now Altadena may be helping Boyer in another way: By giving him something bigger to play for, and forcing him to concentrate even harder on the job at hand Down Under.

“One thing that you focus on a lot is just controlling what you can control,” Boyer says. “That’s just a general thing. This kind of falls into that category. It’s something that I can’t really do anything about right now, but I mean, obviously when I come off the court and after I’ve done all the prep and everything, yeah, it’s crazy what’s happening.

“I mean, I just want to give people some good news.”

Hopefully they can see it and be a little distracted for a little bit. Tristian Boyer, on his second-round match against Alex de Minaur

Boyer has exceedingly good news to give right now. He qualified for the main draw at a major for the first time, beating countryman Chris Eubanks in his final qualifying match. He’s also, at No. 136, closing in on the Top 100 for the first time.

While he has had a fairly meteoric rise of late, it was still a long time coming. After leaving Stanford in 2022, Boyer was sidelined with a foot injury for most of the following year. Since then, he has been training in Argentina with Alejandro Fabbri. Last fall, he did something else that’s rare for an American: He won the Uruguay Open, a Challenger event on red clay.

“I think it’s the best,” Boyer says of his new home away from home. “I think Buenos Aires is the best city to train in the world in terms of number of players and clubs and everything that they have there. It’s great.”

On Tuesday, Boyer was taking on Argentine tennis royalty; Coria is the younger brother of Guillermo, a former Top 5 player. For a couple of hours, Coria looked sure to advance. He led two sets to one, and 4-2 in the fourth. But Boyer never stopped fist-pumping, never stopped shaking his racquet, never stopped urging himself on, and never stopped talking. When he switched from Spanish to English, it was a sign that he was feeling better about his game—and not as worried about getting a code violation.

Most important, Boyer never stopped pushing, working, trying, attacking. A solidly built 6’2”, with a strong serve and a two-handed backhand, he hit 10 aces and 58 winners (compared to Coria’s 29), and came to net 72 times. The effort finally paid off, and the dam broke, late in the fourth set, when he broke Coria twice, and ultimately broke his spirit. You never would have known that this was the first time Boyer had played five sets.

“I’m just happy to have got it done today,” he said afterward. “Yeah, first five-set match. It was a battle. Coria is a fighter. Just happy to be through it.”

Boyer got his first taste of Grand Slam tennis on Tuesday. On Thursday, he’ll get his first taste of stadium court tennis at a Slam, when he faces another English-Spanish speaker, Alex de Minaur. Playing the home favorite will almost surely earn Boyer a trip to Rod Laver Arena. As you might have guessed, he’s looking forward to it.

“It’s going to be super, super fun,” he says. “I’ve never played a match on a stadium like that. Practiced on [Arthur] Ashe [Stadium] a few times, but that’s it. It’s awesome.”

Friends and family will be doing their best to watch back in Altadena, however they can. The gas is off at his house, but his father will see it with friends. Otherwise, Boyer says he isn’t sure who is doing what at this chaotic moment back home. He’s just trying to control what he can control.

“Hopefully they can see it,” Boyer says, “and be a little distracted for a little bit.”