Inside Learner Tien's mindset: 'I just kept plugging away'

On 11 June, #NextGenATP American Learner Tien posted a series of photos on Instagram of himself competing with the caption, “all in due time”. The last slide of the post was a graphic of two men in a dirt tunnel with a pickaxe. One had turned around dejected due to the seemingly never-ending tunnel. The other was further behind, but eagerly swinging away. Unbeknownst to them, there were diamonds on the other side of the dirt in their way.

“If you work away, inevitably you'll break through. I think that’s was what I was thinking,” Tien told ATPTour.com. “Obviously, with the setback of the injury and coming back and just kind of plugging away in the Futures, I felt like just building on match after match, inevitably I'd be back just because I felt like I’d lost some time.”

The two-time USTA Boys’ 18s National Champion entered the season with high hopes, but only managed to play three tournaments before missing more than three months due to a seventh-rib fracture.

“I believe it was just an overuse thing. It wasn't any blunt force or anything like that. It could have been something on my serve, and I was just kind of irritating the spot,” Tien said. “I felt it more like a knot in my back before my rib started hurting, my lat and rib area. So I think just a lot of tension over time just caused it to break down.”

The injury was in an awkward spot for the 18-year-old, who was unable to do much of anything and limited the impact on his body.

“I wasn't really running. I couldn't obviously hold weights or really support or even put any weight on my arm. Couldn't really rotate. So I wasn't doing much of anything besides watching shows, playing video games, stuff like that,” Tien said. “It was definitely tough to see everyone else playing during that time. And I feel like I was falling behind just because right when the year started, all the tournaments started to pick back up, I missed the first however many months. So, yeah, it was tough.”

The lefty from California, who has been watching Game of Thrones and Dexter, was eager to return to action. “Honestly, I kind of got bored after a while,” he said. “I was kind of playing whatever my friends were playing.”

One of his coaches, Eric Diaz, explained why the team really took time before allowing Tien to come back.

“We kind of held off his return to tournaments about six to seven extra weeks, so we really just wanted to clean some stuff up and we did a lot of work on the forehand and on the serve,” Diaz said. “The goal was basically putting off this year and just trying to really develop from the physical side and when he would be ready to come back, we wanted to come back with some things a certain way.”

When Tien returned, it was clear he wanted to make up for lost time. The teen won the first 28 matches of his comeback, claiming four ITF World Tennis Tour titles and his maiden ATP Challenger Tour trophy at Bloomfield Hills.

“Obviously I've done pretty well the past few months coming back from injury, honestly, a lot better than I expected of myself,” Tien said. “Not that I had super low expectations, but I just wasn't really trying to put any pressure on myself, and just trying to go out there and play.”

Diaz added that the goal was to improve and if that translated into wins, great. After Tien won his first tournament back, for which the goal was to get some matches in, there were more events in the area. The lefty maintained his form and has not looked back.

When Tien returned to action in May, he was No. 439 in the PIF ATP Rankings. Three months later, after reaching his first ATP Tour quarter-final in Winston-Salem, he is inside the Top 200 and continuing to climb. Importantly, his confidence has snowballed.

“I think just starting off playing Futures that were close to my house in Southern California were huge. I think playing those matches and playing a lot of consecutive matches, slowly building my confidence back through that [helped],” Tien said. “[I put] myself in a lot of different positions so when some matches get get close, get tight, I'm down a break, I’m up a break, and I lose the break or stuff like that, I can always think back to prior matches that the same things happened. I was able to find a way out of it.

“That was really big, especially coming back from a couple tight matches in Bloomfield Hills. Just having the confidence that I could come back from a set down, set and a break, stuff like that was really big, just for my confidence in those matches, especially the tighter ones.”

Tien is set to compete in his third consecutive US Open main draw at just 18 years old. The #NextGenATP player, who is eighth in the PIF ATP Live Race To Jeddah, earned his place this year by winning the 2024 US Open Wild Card Challenge. He plays 24th seed Arthur Fils in the first round.

“I definitely feel more familiar in that setting, I think, as opposed to the last two years. The last two years obviously, I was pretty young, both those years. I still am,” Tien said. “But the last two years coming in, 16, 17, I think my mindset was a bit different. I was playing juniors both those years as well. Obviously, ranked a lot lower than I am now.

“I think my confidence going in this year is a lot higher, and I just think that I'll feel a little bit more familiar going back for a third time, as opposed to my first two years.”

The past few months have gone as well as possible in terms of results. Diaz called his charge’s work “a very mature effort” and “very clear-visioned”.

“He really carved out the things that we want to improve, and then how to improve them and he’s done a really good job of committing to them in the pressure situations, which I think is pretty meaningful,” Tien said. “It’s been a good block.”

But as Tien posted on Instagram earlier this year, there is always reason to continue digging. Win or lose at the US Open, he will continue to do so.

“I just kind of kept plugging away, and I wasn't trying to rush myself back, honestly,” Tien said. “I just thought, if I just trusted everything I was doing, just kept plugging away, eventually I'd have my time.”

[NEWSLETTER FORM]