All roads to Novak Djokovic’s fifth title in New York go through California. After going toe-to-toe with Irvine, Calif.’s Learner Tien in the first round of his 2025 campaign, the 24-time Grand Slam champion will next battle San Diego native Zachary Svajda for a spot in the third round. (Incredibly, the Serb was drawn to face world No. 28 Alex Michelsen, of Laguna Hills, Calif., in Round 3 of the tournament, but the American ended up losing his opener. Djokovic still could meet 2024 US Open finalist Taylor Fritz, of Rancho Santa Fe, Calif., in the quarterfinals.)
Currently ranked No. 145, the 22-year-old Svajda has enjoyed a solid run-of-form this summer, claiming Challenger titles in Lexington, Ky. and Newport, R.I. and reaching the second round of the ATP 500 tournament in Washington, D.C., where he upset world No. 49 Miomir Kecmanovic and pushed world No. 25 Jiri Lehecka to three sets.
Here is more about Svajda’s impressive resume, which includes one accomplishment that many tennis players have tried—and failed—to achieve: Taking a set off Jannik Sinner at the US Open.
Svajda was a standout junior who scored big wins against future stars—when he played.
In 2019 and 2021, Svajda captured the USTA Boys’ 18s National Championship in Kalamazoo, Mich., becoming the first player to repeat as champion after Jack Sock achieved the feat in 2011. (The tournament was not held in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.) At the 2019 event, at 16, he upset top seed (and current world No. 31) Brandon Nakashima in the semifinals, and in 2021, he defeated a young Ben Shelton in the final to lift the championship hardware.
Svajda clearly had the game to compete with the best; he just often decided against it. Compared to many of his peers, Svajda approached his development in the sport more unconventionally, opting to prioritize training over competing in tournaments. As a result, he only ever attained a career-high ranking of world No. 185 on the ITF junior circuit. (By contrast, his San Diego neighbor Nakashima was ranked as high as No. 3.)
As Svajda told ATPTour.com in 2023: “We were just thinking about it as I got to be 9, 10 years old, we just didn't really see a point of playing these junior tournaments every week. We just tried to focus on getting better…we also couldn't afford to travel around the world playing ITFs or anything. We were like, ‘Let's just take a different route and let's just try to get better every day and hopefully by 15, 16 I'd be a good player and get those matches from there.’’”
Tennis is a family affair—and a great support during a difficult time.
Svajda has been playing the sport since he was two years old. Younger brother Trevor also reached the Boys’ 18s National Championship final (eventually losing to Tien), has been ranked as high as world No. 498 and currently competes for Southern Methodist University. Their father, Tom, is a longtime tennis instructor in the San Diego area who coached both Zachary and Trevor from a very young age.
In 2024, Tom was diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer, and Zachary, Trevor and the local Southern California tennis community have rallied around him as he receives treatment. Last December, the brothers, 2005 US Open quarterfinalist James Blake and Nakashima participated in a fundraiser exhibition to help support the costs of his medical care.
When Svajda found out about his father’s diagnosis, “I questioned taking off the rest of the year just to be with him, but I know he wants me to play,” he told Behind the Racquet last December. “Right now, my number one priority is making sure he’s okay and happy. I’m really not thinking as much about the rankings and my performance, even though, obviously, I still want to do well. It’s almost taken a bit of the pressure off.”
He’s not afraid of the big stages at Flushing Meadows.
Based on his success in Kalamazoo, Svajda earned a wild card into the 2019 US Open. Playing in his first-ever tour-level match, the Californian electrified the New York crowd as he led Italian journeyman and then-world No. 136 Paolo Lorenzi—a player 21 years his senior—by two sets on Court 5 before succumbing to cramps, ultimately losing 3-6, 6-7, 6-4, 7-6, 6-2 in a four-hour and 20 minute epic.
Two years later, receiving another wild card upon defending his Kalamazoo title, Svajda once again returned to New York and promptly improved upon his 2019 campaign, defeating Lorenzi’s compatriot Marco Cecchinato in his opener and then pushing none other than future US Open champion Sinner to four sets in Round 2.
So far, in 2025, he has looked sharp on the grounds of the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center, having not dropped a set through three rounds of qualifying or in his first-round battle against fellow qualifier Zsombor Piros of Hungary. In that contest, the 5-foot-9 American fired down 14 aces, the same amount that his 6-foot-11 compatriot Reilly Opelka hit in his Round 1 battle against Carlos Alcaraz.
