(Photo: Patricia Vicente/WCSN)
Four years ago, Nathan Ponwith was a top 20 junior tennis player in the world. He had spent years going toe-to-toe with many prominent young stars of the sport who were already pursuing professional careers. He had competed and won matches in multiple junior majors, and boasted wins over current world No. 6 Stefanos Tsitsipas and world No. 15 Denis Shapovalov.
He was one of the premier young talents in a sport where players with professional aspirations had long been expected to start their careers before reaching legal adulthood, typically leaving college as an afterthought.
Yet Ponwith, now a senior at Arizona State, broke the mold by taking his talents to the University of Georgia as the number one American recruit in his class.
“I felt that I wasn’t ready as a person to start my career [out of high school],” Ponwith said. “I knew players who had gone to college and developed their games, and I didn’t feel that I was mature enough to go pro and make that my life yet.”
Ponwith said he plans to pursue a professional tennis career full-time after this season, but always intended on going to college first, a foreign idea to some in tennis circles.
“I just knew that college was somewhere I could go to develop my tennis, and I wanted to get a college degree,” Ponwith said. “Some people were saying this, some people were saying that, but the people that I cared about, my family and my coach at the time, were all on the same page that going to college was best for me.”
Ponwith transferred from Georgia following his sophomore year after ASU’s men’s tennis program was restored. His collegiate success came immediately, however, as he posted a 22-15 record in his first year at Georgia and was honored as SEC Freshman of the Year and an All-SEC first team member.
With his impressive campaign, Ponwith matched the freshman accomplishments of Georgia legend John Isner, an unprecedented success story who played four years of college tennis from 2004-07 and later reached a professional ranking of world No. 8.
“Isner changed a lot of people’s minds because he got to top ten in the world,” Ponwith said. “It [used to be] like when someone decided to play college tennis, they were giving up on their career.”
The amount of players who have found success professionally after playing multiple years of college tennis has grown dramatically since Isner’s days, and Ponwith referenced the achievements of TCU alum and world No. 58 Cameron Norrie and UCLA alum Mackenzie McDonald, who has been ranked as high as world No. 57, as reassurance for his plan.
“[Norrie and McDonald] are fresh on the scene on the tour and they’re having great success, so seeing those guys motivates me and lets me know that I’m on the right path and it can be done,” Ponwith said.
Currently ranked 655th in the world, Ponwith’s professional experience has been limited thus far. He has found success at that level, however, most notably when he won ten consecutive matches en route to his first professional title at an ITF Futures event in Champaign, Illinois, last June.
Remarkably, Ponwith entered the tournament with no professional ranking, as he had been playing only college events.
“I showed up and played the pre-qualifiers, which is basically where anyone can show up, then went through the qualifiers and ended up winning the tournament,” Ponwith said. “I knew I could play at that level, and I knew I could win the tournament.”
Ponwith also participated in the Arizona Tennis Classic last year, an ATP Challenger event in Phoenix that starred two current top ten players in the world, Matteo Berrettini and David Goffin.
“It was awesome to get the opportunity to play in that tournament,” Ponwith said. “It’s cool just to see those guys and to see your name in the same draw.”
Ponwith lost 6-4, 6-4 in the first round of the tournament to former world No. 60 Tatsuma Ito, in a match he felt he could have won.
“It was cool just to see that I was on the court with a guy who was top 150 in the world and it was a real match,” Ponwith said. “It lets you know that you’re doing the right things and to keep going.”
Ponwith is yet to play this season due to a shoulder injury he suffered in November, but he expects to be healthy very soon, and hopes to participate in the tournament again when it returns in March.
Although Ponwith has only experienced bits and pieces of the professional tour himself, he has a unique lens into what life is like for pros thanks to his close friendships with world No. 39 Reilly Opelka and world No. 66 Tommy Paul, both of whom he competed with for years as a junior.
“Talking with them, I get a lot of insight on how they feel about the tour and their games, and how they handle things,” Ponwith said.
Paul and Opelka recently hosted Ponwith for a week in Delray Beach, Florida, where they both train, giving him an extended look at pro life.
“I think it was just good for him to see how we practice and how we go about our lives daily,” Paul said.
Paul, who was at one point committed to Georgia as well before deciding to go pro instead, said the blend of a college education and experience in pro tournaments has been great for Ponwith, but noted that the dynamic will change when he turns pro full-time.
“It’s always a grind to start,” Paul said. “It’s different playing not as a college athlete; there’s a little bit more pressure on you.”
Last week, an ATP event in Delray Beach featured 11 Americans, including Paul, Opelka (who won the tournament), and several other American peers of Ponwith’s generation. Ponwith said that seeing such familiar players succeeding at that level, many of whom he has beaten, encourages him to believe that he will be alongside them sooner rather than later.
“It’s going to take time and a lot of work and a lot of persistence, but I believe in myself and that’s why I’m going to try this, because I believe I can be there.”
