By Randy Walker
@TennisPublisher
Jenson Brooksby hits one of the most rare shots ever in tennis and it has served him well as the 18-year-old from Sacramento, California won three qualifying round matches to enter the main draw of the 2019 U.S. Open.
Brooksby is one of only a handful of professional players to ever hit a slice shot off the backhand side with two hands and used it when needed to during his 6-3, 6-7 (4), 6-3 win over Pedro Martinez of Spain in his final round qualifying match. The teenager started to laugh when he sensed the conversation in his post-match interview with me was going to veer towards his unique backhand shot.
“Did you know I was going to ask you about that?” I asked.
“Yeah,” he said with a smile. “No one I’ve seen does it. Except I remember Florian Mayer (a former top 20 player from Germany), I think did it when he was playing.”
I told him that Patrick McEnroe was of the players who used the stroke back in the day. “Did he really?” he said. I said I thought that current U.S. Tennis Association President Patrick Galbraith may have hit it during his pro playing days and also five-time Wimbledon champion Bjorn Borg, but very few others.
“I started with that when I was younger and I think it’s a pretty good slice so I’ve just kept with it,” he said of his unique stroke, saying that he tried to let go of the racquet with his left hand on the backhand slice, as 99 percent of other pros do, but he had more trouble controlling the shot.
Brooksby was the only American man to advance through the qualifying rounds and was the only American man to even reach the finals. An amateur ranked No. 393, he needed a wild card entry from the USTA just to get into the qualifying tournament. He now will be playing in the U.S. Open main draw for the second straight year after winning the 2018 USTA National Boy’s 18 Championships in Kalamazoo, Michigan at the age of 17 to earn the automatic main draw wild card into the event.
“I feel even happier being in the main this year, because I feel it was harder work qualifying this way than through Kalamazoo,” said Brooksby.
His did not last long in the main draw last year, falling in to the opening round to John Millman of Australia 6-4, 6-2, 6-0. While the one-sided loss to the journeyman Millman did not look great at the time, Millman went on to register the upset of the tournament beating five-time U.S. Open champion Roger Federer in the fourth round before falling in the quarterfinals.
“I felt prepared going into it but I hadn’t really played any Challengers at any point before that and I just jumped straight to it,” said Brooksby of his 2018 U.S. Open experience. “I was prepared mentally to play, but I wasn’t really ready physically. This year, I’m more ready.”
Brooksby has excelled in lower level pro events on the Futures and Challenger tour, winning Futures titles in Champaign, Illinois and Decatur, Illinois on the U.S. Tennis Association Pro Circuit.
“Those two tournaments were tough tournaments with good opponents and I was playing pretty well throughout both tournaments,” he said of his wins in Illinois. “That’s 10 total matches and it gave me a lot of confidence coming into (the U.S. Open qualifying.)”
Brooksby said he will be enrolling at Baylor University in Waco, Texas in January and will continue to play Futures and Challengers following the U.S. Open and before he enters the world of college tennis.
He will face former U.S. Open semifinalist and Wimbledon finalist Tomas Berdych of the Czech Republic in the first round.
“I have so much more experience now compared to last year when I played,” he said. “I’ll be ready for three out of five sets. My game is a lot of better. I’m physically better and mentally stronger, so I definitely think I can do well here.”
