ATP Tour

Next Steps: How Tien, Basavareddy & Engel are making the leap

For most players, the move from junior or college tennis to the ATP Tour comes with a reality check. The margins shrink, the travel never stops and the losses come more often than before. But for Learner Tien, Nishesh Basavareddy and Justin Engel, those challenges have become part of the process and stepping stones toward something bigger.

Each has taken a different route to the professional ranks. Tien played a semester at the University of Southern California before turning full-time pro in 2023. Basavareddy grew up with Rajeev Ram in support and then impressed at Stanford University, where he balanced academics and college tennis before joining the Tour at the end of last season. Engel took the direct route, jumping straight from juniors into the men’s game. What unites them now is momentum.

Tien reached his first ATP Tour final in Beijing, Basavareddy made the semi-finals in Auckland, and Engel earned Tour-level wins in Hamburg and Stuttgart. The biggest adjustment for Tien wasn’t just the tennis itself, but everything around it.

“For me personally, I never played much outside the U.S., so I think the travel and the amount of weeks on the road consecutively is probably the biggest difference," Tien told ATPTour.com.

“And with the results and matches, It wasn’t really just one match. Each match, win or lose, I felt like I was just learning a lot from all of them. I was being exposed to a different level, and that was really good for me.”

That exposure in 2024 turned into progress in 2025. After reaching the title match at the Next Gen ATP Finals presented by PIF last December, the 19-year-old American made history at the Australian Open, where he became the youngest man to reach the fourth round in Melbourne since Rafael Nadal in 2005. His run at the major meant he cracked the Top 100 in the PIF ATP Rankings for the first time.

“I didn’t think I made it after Australia and still don’t,” said Tien, who also advanced to the fourth round at ATP Masters 1000 events in Toronto and Shanghai this year. “I want to go further. But Australia was very special for me, breaking the Top 100, my first slam win, that’s probably the most memorable tournament I’ve had so far.”

Tien’s countryman and friend Basavareddy has built his steady rise on hard work and a willingness to learn from setbacks.

“The biggest transition from college to pros is just completely different tennis-wise,” Basavareddy said. “In college, you play a couple matches a week and losing is rare. On tour, it’s your full-time job, you start losing a lot more, and sometimes that can take a hit to your confidence.”

A first-round qualifying loss at Roland Garros was one of those moments.

“It was a big hit mentally,” Basavareddy admitted. “But I feel like that made me reconsider a lot of things and try to see where I could really improve in all aspects of my game.”

In 2023, the American also had the opportunity to serve as a sparring partner at the Nitto ATP Finals, which provided him with a clearer sense of what it takes.

“Being around those eight guys, seeing what they do every day, what they eat, how they train, that was huge,” said Basavareddy, who earned his maiden tour-level in Auckland in 2025. “It was also the first time I hit with that big of a ball in my life. Either Sinner or Alcaraz had the most impressive one, different kinds of balls, but both really tough to deal with.”

In 2024, Basavareddy won two ATP Challenger Tour titles and competed at the Next Gen ATP Finals presented by PIF. Then, in January, Basavareddy found himself under the spotlight in Melbourne, where he faced Novak Djokovic in the first round of the AO.

“Playing on Rod Laver [Arena] at the Australian Open, I didn’t know how the nerves would affect me,” said Basavereddy, who won a set against the 24-time major champ. “But I thought I handled it well. Being one-set all with one of the greatest of all time, that was when I really felt like I belonged.”

For 18-year-old Engel, the youngest of the trio, the past year has been about proving that belonging can happen sooner than expected.

The German became the first player born in 2007 to record a tour-level win when he defeated Coleman Wong in the first round in Almaty in October 2024. He built on that win with a victory against Jan-Lennard Struff on home soil in Hamburg in May and a quarter-final showing in Stuttgart. Last week, he triumphed on the ATP Challenger Tour for the first time, winning a title in Hamburg.

“The mental game is the toughest part,” Engel said on his transition from juniors. “All the men’s players are fighting for every point, and it’s much harder to get points because they’re faster and hit harder. But it is all like a dream come true. When I see Novak Djokovic or Carlos Alcaraz in the locker room, it’s an unbelievable feeling. This is what I trained for all my life.”

Despite his tour-level success, the German’s maiden Futures title in Austria in 2024 remains his key milestone moment.

“That was the moment where I felt like, 'OK, I can do this,” Engel said. "It was a ‘Wow, now I'm in a men's tour and I can move on’ moment.”

Here comes Justin Engel… 🏃‍♂️

The 18-year-old has jumped three spots to ninth in the PIF ATP Live Race To Jeddah after he won his first @ATPChallenger title in Hamburg 👉 https://t.co/wqoAVlhlxh#NextGenATPFinals pic.twitter.com/Pls7kfnvHx

— Next Gen ATP Finals (@nextgenfinals) October 28, 2025

For all three, progress has come not from a single breakthrough but from consistency, the daily work that adds up slowly, until one day it looks like a leap forward.

“I’m big on working on little things at a time,” Tien said. “All those bits of work every day add up. It seems sudden when it improves, but it honestly takes a lot longer than people think.”

Basavareddy shares that mindset: “At every level, juniors, college, pros, you need hard work and discipline. That’s always been there for me.”

And Engel keeps it simple: “Every loss gives me more fire. It just makes me want to practise more and keep going.”

This is the second feature of our Next Gen ATP series Next in Line. On 21 October we looked at early memories with Rei Sakamoto, Federico Cina and Nicolai Budkov Kjaer, which you can read here...

Learn more about Tien
Learn more about Basavareddy
Learn more about Engel

On 4 November 2025, Basavareddy, Dino Prizmic and Martin Landaluce reflect on the country role models who have inspired their journeys.