Learner Tien: Youngest Geneva Open Victor Since 1989 Eyes French Open Success

LEARNER TIEN HAD a realization as he prepared for his first full year on the ATP Tour.

He had just turned 19 and was fresh off a runner-up appearance at the 2024 ATP Next Gen Finals. He had taken home three Challenger Tour trophies. But something occurred to him as he was readying to compete in the qualifying draw at the Australian Open.

He was going to lose many more tournaments than he was going to win.

He wasn't used to that -- he had been successful at the lower levels and as a junior -- and he wasn't exactly thrilled about it. But he knew it was something he was going to have to make peace with if he was going to survive life as a professional tennis player.

"I never want to be OK or complacent with losing, but I just wanted myself to know that one loss isn't the end of the world," Tien told ESPN this spring. "You're playing great players, and there are no easy matches. There are so many weeks in a year, and one loss isn't going to make or break your whole year."

He wasn't entirely sold on the new mentality, but at first, he didn't need to be. Tien rolled through qualifying in Melbourne and into his first Australian Open main draw. It was there -- and most notably during his second-round, five-set upset of former world No. 1 Daniil Medvedev -- that he transformed from a virtual unknown to a surging star on the rise. He ultimately advanced to the fourth round, and his ranking skyrocketed.

Since his breakthrough last season, Tien has continued to climb up the rankings to his current career high of No. 18. He has also collected more wins, including his first ATP title at the Moselle Open in November and a quarterfinal appearance at the 2026 Australian Open. But, as he expected, there have been plenty of losses and challenges, too. On Tuesday, he will look to earn his first victory at Roland Garros, after losing last season in the opening round. Facing former top-20 player Cristian Garin and then potentially playing No. 10 seed Flavio Cobolli in the third round won't be easy -- although momentum is on his side. After compiling a 2-2 record in Madrid and Rome to open the European clay-court season, Tien reached his first ATP career final on clay last week in Geneva and then won the title Saturday against Mariano Navone 3-6, 6-3, 7-5.

And no matter how he fares in Paris, it's clear Tien's future looks bright.

"I think he's a very talented player," Novak Djokovic said at Indian Wells in March. "He has had some great performances, and he's still very young. ... It seems like he's putting a good team around himself, and he's obviously from America and has the great support of the USTA and the whole thing that goes with it.

"He has all of the preconditions or precursors of becoming a really good tennis player. So it's really up to him now, and time will tell."

TIEN HAS LONG been seen as a really good tennis player by those around him.

Sam Querrey , the former world No. 11, has known Tien since he was 9 or 10. Querrey frequently practiced, even well into his professional career, at the USTA Training Center in Carson, California, often with former world No. 21 Steve Johnson . Tien, who lived in nearby Irvine, was a frequent fixture on site, alongside his dad, Khuong.

Initially what stuck out to both Querrey and Johnson wasn't necessarily something they saw about Tien's game but his personality.

"We always used to say he was so unannoying," Querrey told ESPN. "It was a compliment we gave him. There weren't that many young kids there, and he would watch us play and he was just so mature for his age."

And while other parents of promising young tennis players often peppered the professionals with incessant questions about what it would take to get to the next level, Tien's dad, who had been his first coach, never did. Querrey found their more laid-back approach refreshing, and he said he genuinely liked having Tien around.

Eventually, by the time Tien was 12 or 13, Querrey and Johnson had him hit with them. Querrey remembers doing a two-on-one drill with him on several occasions, in which Tien and Johnson were on one side of the net and Querrey on the other.

"He was a smart player and could hang in there from the baseline," Querrey, who is now a tennis analyst and hosts the "Nothing Major" podcast with Johnson and John Isner , said.

In an interview with the ATP , Johnson praised Tien's "incredible" timing and said he knew he was special. "Even at that age you could just tell that there was something different because our ball didn't affect him the way it would most 12, 13-year-old kids," Johnson said.

But, despite his admiration for Tien, Querrey wasn't quite as convinced as Johnson about Tien's tennis future. Remembering Tien as a 13-year-old standing about "5-foot-1 and with a little mullet," he thought he could end up as a good college player but more than likely would "fade away" as "95% of kids" do. Querrey stopped training in Carson soon after and lost touch with Tien.

Within a few years he was reminded of his former young training partner.

"Occasionally I'd look up and be like, 'Oh, did Learner just win a Challenger?' Oh, he's pretty good. Good for him.' And then kind of like everyone else, I honestly feel like I looked up at the Australian Open in 2025 and he beat Medvedev and I was like, 'Whoa, I didn't realize Learner was that good.'"

Though he perhaps didn't receive the same amount of attention of other promising young juniors, Tien reached the boys' singles finals at the Australian Open and the US Open in 2023 and won the doubles title in Australia that same year. He was ranked as high as No. 4 as a junior.

The No. 1 recruit in the nation, Tien committed to USC and joined the team halfway through the 2022-23 season, shortly after he returned from Melbourne. He was immediately a factor for the Trojans, playing in the No. 2 singles spot and as part of the No. 1 doubles team, but he made the decision to turn professional at the end of his first semester. That same summer, he won his first ITF title.

The following July, as an 18-year-old, he won his first Challenger title at the Cranbrook Open -- becoming the youngest American to win a title at that level since Frances Tiafoe in 2016. He won two more Challenger titles before the season's end -- joining just Andy Roddick , Taylor Fritz and Querrey as the only Americans to win three on the circuit before turning 19 -- and his 6-0, 6-1 thrashing of Bernard Tomic in just 39 minutes at the Fairfield Challenger was the fastest championship match in circuit history.

At the Winston-Salem Open that August, he came through qualifying to make his first ATP main draw. He then became the youngest American to reach an ATP-level quarterfinals since Brandon Nakashima in 2020. At the start of 2024, he was ranked No. 454. By the end of the year, he had moved to No. 122.

So, to go back to where this all started, Tien was very much used to winning. And he thought by understanding that losing was a part of life in the big leagues -- everyone not named Jannik Sinner has lost more tournaments than they have won this season, after all -- it would make it easier. Logically it made sense, but he still struggled. During spring 2025, he lost three matches in a row, including at his home tournament at Indian Wells. The grueling, nonstop globetrotting life on the road was taking its toll.

"I was telling myself that and still I felt like I was stuck in that mindset where sometimes losing a match felt like the end of my life," Tien said. "I think that along with other things, like being away from home a lot longer than I'm used to, I just wasn't used to being gone that much. On top of losing that much, it kind of piled on top of each other, and some of those weeks were tough."

Eventually, at some point last season -- Tien isn't sure specifically when -- he began to see losses as a chance for growth. He wanted to make the most out of each one and use every match as an opportunity to get better. Once he found that slightly different perspective, it changed everything. Not to mention, he said "it made the wins feel even better."

In July, Tien started working with Michael Chang, the former world No. 2 and 1989 French Open champion. In an interview with the ATP earlier this year, Chang called Tien a "very special individual" and praised his fighting spirit and no-quit attitude. Their partnership was fruitful right away. Tien reached the final at the 500-level China Open before winning the trophy in Metz in November with a 6-3, 3-6, 7-6 (6) victory over Cameron Norrie . He closed out the season with the ATP Next Gen Final title.

Tien proved 2025 was no fluke when he reached the quarterfinals at the Australian Open in January. He defeated Medvedev for the third time in 12 months in the fourth round in straight sets. Tien then lost to Alexander Zverev , the No. 3 seed and three-time major finalist, in the quarterfinals in a battle that saw two set tiebreaks. Zverev, who had defeated Tien at Roland Garros last season, praised his opponent's clear improvement in such a short amount of time.

"I felt like I didn't have a spot on the court where I could just hit the ball, and I felt like I was out of danger," Zverev said after the match. "[It] doesn't matter what speed, doesn't matter the height. I felt like if I was hitting fast but in his racket, he was using my speed to redirect the ball. If I was hitting a bit slower, he was taking the ball early, being aggressive himself.

"I felt like there was not really a spot on the court where you could just put the ball there and restart the rally, which was quite impressive. It wasn't the case last year, so he has improved a lot in that regard. I think, also, got to give credit to Michael Chang. I think what he is doing with him is phenomenal. Yeah, hell of a player right now."

Querrey has also been astounded by Tien's progress and tennis IQ.

"His decision-making on court is some of the best I've ever seen in my life," Querrey said. "I feel like every time he lines up for a ball, he's very clear on where he's going to hit it, what he's going to do. ... The clarity in his mind of how he plays is as good as anyone in the world, and it's incredibly special for a 20-year-old."

The red clay has been a notoriously tricky surface for the American men in recent decades -- no one has advanced past the semifinals since Andre Agassi won the title in 1999 -- and the expectations weren't high for Tien at Roland Garros prior to his impressive run in Geneva. But with wins over Stefanos Tsitsipas , a former French Open finalist, and Alexander Bublik , who reached the quarterfinals last year, in addition to earning the trophy, he proved what he is capable of. He became the youngest man to win a tour-level title on clay since Chang in 1989.

"Last year I really struggled on this surface," Tien said after the victory. "Coming into this year I was really trying to get last year out of my mind. I had a couple of tough losses, and it was a bit discouraging. But people around me are very supportive, and they had more belief in me than I did in myself. I am really happy to win my first clay title here."

Grass still remains a question for Tien. He did reach the quarterfinals at the Mallorca Open last season and won one match at Wimbledon but doesn't have much experience on the surface. However, with few points to defend overall over the next two months, there will be ample room for his ranking to rise. And the expectations will skyrocket once the Tour turns back to the hard court after Wimbledon. But no matter what the results are, on any surface, Tien has found new ways to define success this year.

"I just think leaving no stone unturned is the biggest thing for me," Tien said. "Obviously, if I feel like I poured my heart and my soul into a tournament and I lose with three match points, that will still feel terrible, even if I couldn't have done anymore. That's just how it is.

"But honestly, rationally when I

_Originally reported by [ESPN](https://www.espn.com/tennis/story/_/id/48862580/american-learner-tien-french-open-geneva-open)._