CHIP SQUARELY ON SHOULDER, BROOKSBY REEMERGES

AMERICAN PLAYING WAY BACK INTO U.S. MIX

By Richard Osborn

When we talk about the depth of American men’s tennis, Jenson Brooksby’s name doesn’t always pop up.

There’s the trio of 27/28-year-olds in Taylor Fritz, Tommy Paul and Frances Tiafoe, of course, all of whom have logged time inside the Top 10 in the PIF ATP Rankings at one time or another. There’s Ben Shelton, who with a run to his maiden Masters 1000 title in Toronto has risen to a career-high No. 6. But Brooksby, a former USTA Boys’ 18s Nationals winner who burst onto the scene at the 2021 US Open, where he extended world No. 1 Novak Djokovic to four sets under the white-hot lights of Arthur Ashe Stadium in the Round of 16, doesn’t really get much love.

Maybe it’s because, just as he was forcing his way into the mix, vexing the likes of Fritz, Tiafoe, Stefanos Tsitsipas, Tomas Berdych, Casper Ruud, Felix Auger-Aliassime, John Isner, etc., rising to a career-high No. 33 in 2022, he was slapped with an International Tennis Integrity Agency-mandated 18-month suspension due to three missed doping tests. Or the repeated injuries — arm woes, turf toe, wrist surgery, etc. — that have, at times, kept him off the court.

“I definitely have a chip on my shoulder. I think any of us want to be included in that part of the conversation,” said Brooksby, who returned to the tour in January.

“I’ve had wins against pretty much all of them, I think, so I definitely want to fight my way back into that mix and be close with them in the rankings. It’s always a little chip on my shoulder, I think, in a healthy way.”

Brooksby, who saw his suspension reduced to 13 months by the ITIA, didn’t waste time getting back into the swing of things. Ranked as low as No. 1089 at the start of the year, the unorthodox counterpuncher is back on the cusp of the Top 100, buoyed by a run to his first tour-level title in Houston. A qualifier, he would dismiss three countrymen in succession to claim the ATP 250 event, upsetting Aleksandar Kovacevic, Paul and runner-up Tiafoe. He saved match points in three matches en route to the clay-court trophy, at No. 507 the third-lowest-ranked champion in ATP Tour history.
It was just the boost Brooksby needed.

“Not only in terms of confidence in my game and physically being able to last seven matches as long as I did, but rankings-wise, as well,” said the 24-year-old baseliner, who is coached by Rhyne Williams and Eric Nunez, and trains at the USTA National Campus in Orlando, Fla. “Being able to shoot up again is huge. Once you can make a run to be able to finish the job, it’s just a huge positive all around. It can make a difference in your year.”

“I was very fired up to be able to repeat that match after match after match, and just be comfortable finding ways to close out matches, tight matches, in that situation. There’s a lot of things that came together that I thought would only happen in the middle of the year, second part of the year, but that really kick-started it in April; three and a half months in, pretty much.”

With his performance this week at the Cincinnati Open, he’ll climb yet further. With a 7-5, 6-1 victory of lucky loser Arthur Cazaux on Sunday, the native Californian booked a spot in Round 3. It’s this kind of consistency that is helping Brooksby, who in December revealed that he has long lived with autism, stifle any creeping self-doubt.

“There’s a lot of different ways that it comes at you,” he confided. “It’s like, do you really believe in yourself physically to be able to come back at this level? Believing I should be a part of this and not being able to, that was really tough for me. I didn’t watch tennis for six to nine months. I might see some Slam finals, but as a whole, I wasn’t really watching it. Not getting to play, there was a lot of tough parts, but I always tried to remind myself of what I could achieve out there in the court and the wins I had. I just use that to fuel me.”

Did Brooksby take any positives from his time away from the sport?

“I think number one is just being proud of my resolve and not giving up to try to reach my dreams, being in all these tournaments consistently and seeing how good of a tennis player I can be. And second, with how much time I missed, I got to be able to think about how I wanted to organize my team as a whole, where I wanted to be, what things I wasn’t doing as well before.”

Brooksby will next test his resolve against the streaking 14th seed Karen Khachanov, who is coming off the ATP Masters 1000 final in Toronto. The American claimed their only previous encounter, 6-0, 6-3, in the second round of the BNP Paribas Open in 2022.