Australian tennis player Li Tu took the Arthur Ashe Stadium by storm on Tuesday after giving Carlos Alcaraz quite a scare in their first round match a the US Open 2024. However, very few are aware of the inspiring past Tu has lived and that has come out in public thanks to ESPN broadcaster, Bryan Fenley. Fenley also recently covered an ATP Challenger tournament which Tu won, before playing in the qualifiers of the US Open.
Fenley took to X to reveal that Tu quit tennis twice because of his ‘helicopter father’ in his early pro years but found his way back to it and went into coaching. However, because of the love he harbors for the sport, the 28-year-old is now attempting to make a comeback as a player, even though it might be a too late now for that.
Regardless of how this Alcaraz Tu match ends at the #USOpen.
Tu’s story is unlike any other.
He quit the sport twice, stepped away for years in his 20s to start his own business, and then felt called to get back into the tennis, after getting back into coaching.
He turned…
— Bryan Fenley (@BryanFenley) August 28, 2024
Majorly an ATP Challenger player, Tu began playing tennis at a very young age of 6. After achieving major accolades like representing his country at the Junior Davis Cup, Tu began his pro career.
However, after a very brief professional career, the Australian decided to step away from tennis in 2014 to run his own business. He started his coaching career by setting up L2 Academy, a tennis academy, in Adelaide.
But in the year 2020, he felt it was time to make his return to professional tennis at the age of 24. His ATP debut came in February 2021 at the Melbourne Summer Series where he lost his first match.
In 2021, he made his major debut at the Australian Open where he was a main draw wildcard. However soon after his second stint, he again took a 2-month break from the sport to spend time with his mother, who was suffering from cancer. Ever since her death in 2022, the aim of the Australian has been to make his mother proud of him.
Tu has a bright future seeing his performance on his US Open debut. He also reminded everybody of the famous SABR attack of Roger Federer as he moved towards the net on Alcaraz’s serve to score points by hitting volleys. His one-handed backhands also looked very Federer-like on many occasions.
Tu is currently ranked 186th and has won a little more than $400,000 in career prize money. The Aussie would look to do better than that and the signs are good that he would.
