Jenson Brooksby's historic ATP Challenger Tour season

"How easy is tennis for you right now?"

That was the reaction from Bjorn Fratangelo, Jenson Brooksby's opponent in April's Tallahassee Challenger final, when the 20-year-old ripped an on-the-run backhand winner from outside the doubles alley, just catching the edge of the line. Brooksby would go on to win that match, 6-3, 4-6, 6-3, to seal his tour-leading third ATP Challenger title of the young season.

It was the perfect end to a perfect two-week stretch in Florida, where Brooksby won 10 matches in 12 days to win the Orlando Open (hard court) and the Tallahassee event (clay). The Sacramento, Calif., native won in Orlando without dropping a set, but was pushed to a decider in four of his five matches in the Florida capital. Despite the heavy court time, Brooksby managed to save 16 of 19 break points against Fratangelo in the all-American final, before closing the match out with an overhead.

For his efforts in winning back-to-back USTA Pro Circuit titles, he was named Team USA Player of the Month for April, alongside Claire Liu.

"I pride myself on being able to fight and get through those matches," Brooksby told USTA.com in a recent Zoom interview, "however many matches it takes."

He credits his fitness work over the last six months for his durability through that scintillating two-week stretch, and his physical ability has served him well in what is still just his first full year as a professional tennis player.

"All the training hours give me the confidence to do it in the matches," he said.

Brooksby's early success in 2021 is reaching historic levels—his 19-2 ATP Challenger Tour record in is the best start to a Challenger season since Kei Nishikori in 2010. He's also the youngest American to win three titles in a season since an 18-year-old Sam Querrey in 2006, and the youngest American to reach four finals in a season since an 18-year-old Frances Tiafoe in 2016. In addition to the two Florida titles, Brooksby was also the last man standing in Potchefstroom, South Africa, in February, and he reached the championship match at the Cleveland Challenger in March.

It represents a major turnaround from 2020, a year in which Brooksby was plagued by injuries—not to mention the pandemic. After suffering a toe injury in December 2019, along with some other small issues after that, Brooksby was not able to train at 100% until the very end of 2020.

In January of 2020, he arrived on campus at Baylor University, where he was set to compete as a scholarship athlete during the spring NCAA season. But before he was healthy enough to get on the court, COVID sent everyone home.

This, of course, was after Brooksby hit the big-time at the 2019 US Open, when he upset former world No. 4 Tomas Berdych in the opening round after qualifying his way into the main draw. But he elected to turn down the $100,000 in second-round prize money in order to remain eligible to play at Baylor, feeling that his body was not ready for the week-to-week grind of the professional tour.

Today, Brooksby's physical fitness is a strength. With full confidence in his game and his body, the American is now embracing the mental challenge of high-level tennis—an area where he's excelled of late, particularly in that stretch of 10 match wins in 12 days.

“I know my game is at this level, that I can be doing this week in, week out," he said, when asked if he was surprised by his recent success. "It’s more of a mental battle, a mental challenge, than my game or belief, or anything like that.”

Following Brooksby's Tallahassee victory, he completed a fitness training block in Boca Raton, Fla., before returning home to Sacramento to train with his coach, Joseph Gilbert. Gilbert has coached Brooksby for more than half of his life, since the age of 7, after starting out giving lessons to Jenson's parents.

“We have a great relationship," Brooksby said of his coach. "He’s been so, so helpful to me, getting me to where I am today. I feel we’ll do big things, and we'll just stay focused and keep trusting the process.”

The next major step in that process is preparing for Roland-Garros qualifying, which begins May 23, with a potential warm-up event in Estoril, Portugal, also on the horizon. After starting the year ranked outside the ATP's Top 300, Brooksby now sits a career-high of No. 166, comfortably inside the cutoff for qualifying in Paris. It will be his first attempt at Grand Slam qualification outside of the US Open.