PRINCETON, N.J. — His title is Fnu Nidunjianzan. Besides it’s not. As a result of Fnu isn’t technically a reputation; it’s an acronym. Fnu stands for First Identify Unknown, and it’s how Tibetans, who don’t observe conventional first title/surname construction, establish themselves as a way to fill out pesky paperwork, resembling U.S. visas.
Nidunjianzan grew up enjoying tennis in Tibet. Or not precisely. As a result of there aren’t any tennis courts in Tibet. That is partially due to the altitude. Tennis balls typically deflate/explode on affect, which makes enjoying tennis a bit of tough.
Fnu goes by High. Not due to topspin, although that will be badass. No, it’s as a result of his older sister, Fnu Youjia, fancied a South Korean rapper, Choi Seung-hyun, who glided by T.O.P.
Fnu turned High and High he stays.
Perhaps at some point his title will grow to be family. Or perhaps not. Tennis is a tough enterprise; solely a tiny pattern measurement of its athletes obtain sufficient to grow to be a part of the vernacular. However what Nidunjianzan already has carried out is extraordinary. Within the 50 years because the ATP Tour began its singles rating system, not a single participant from Tibet had earned a single rating level. Nidunjianzan has 20 of them, and ranks 869th on this planet.
Sitting in a media studio inbuilt one of many many subterranean flooring of Princeton’s Jadwin Gymnasium, the 19-year-old Nidunjianzan considers his journey, which is just simply starting. “I do marvel typically, how did I get right here?”
Nidunjianzan’s father, Nimazhaxi, is a former observe and discipline athlete turned coach turned tourism director. He and his spouse, Gasheng, consider sports activities present a important outlet for his or her kids which, on this nation, doesn’t sound terribly revolutionary. It’s outlandish in Tibet. Not till 2022 did a Tibetan-born athlete compete within the Olympics. That stems partially from an extended and complex political historical past wherein Tibet has spent many years searching for independence from China, but in addition from a mindset that values white-collar jobs over sport.
However Nimazhaxi noticed sports activities as a mechanism to develop his son right into a extra well-rounded individual, enable him to discover the idea of competitors that hardly ever has a spot in Tibet, and maybe unfold his wings past the area’s pretty closed borders. He didn’t push him to anybody sport. Nidunjianzan visited mainland China. He tried pingpong, swimming, badminton, and ultimately, very rudimentary tennis. Father and son self-selected – pingpong and badminton are virtually prodigy sports activities in mainland China, and basketball didn’t precisely swimsuit the vertically challenged Nidunkianzian. That left tennis.
Aside from the one tiny rub: Tennis didn’t actually exist in Tibet. When Nidunjianzan began hitting the ball, folks would cease and stare curiously, uncertain what precisely he was doing. Nimazhaxi took it upon himself to craft a rudimentary court docket for his son to play on. He additionally appointed himself his son’s coach. “He tried to show me, however he was a observe coach,” Nidunjianzan says. “He’d inform me how tennis interprets to javelin, like throwing a javelin is rather like swinging a tennis racket. Um, not likely.” Between that and the balls that recurrently went pffffzzzzt upon affect, Nimazhaxi quickly realized that tennis and Tibet wouldn’t work.
High Nidunjianzan is the primary participant from Tibet to earn a rating level on the ATP Tour. He has 20 of them, and ranks 869th on this planet. (Courtesy of Princeton Athletics)
When most individuals consider Tibet, they consider Mount Everest, positioned within the Himalayan sliver between Tibet and Nepal on the area’s western border. Nidunjianzan grew up within the capital metropolis of Lhasa, on the opposite aspect of the area, neighboring China. It was there that Nidunjianzan and his mom relocated – to Chengdu, some 1,200 miles from house. Tennis was then and stays nonetheless a rising sport in China. Li Na turned the primary Chinese language athlete to win a Grand Slam title when she gained the French Open in 2011. Nevertheless it was lightyears forward of Tibet, and afforded the 6-year-old Nidunjianzan, who performed on the Chengdu Metropolis Membership, an opportunity to apply alongside gamers as outdated as 17.
By luck, Timmy Allin arrived in Chengdu across the identical time as Nidunjianzan relocated there. Born and raised in Texas, Allin performed tennis on the College of Utah. A 3-time All Mountain West scholar-athlete, he was awarded a fifth-year educational scholarship to review Chinese language at any college in China. He selected Chengdu and whereas finding out, he additionally coached tennis on the aspect. He met Nidunjianzan in 2011 when the household sought out Western coaches to enhance his recreation.
Allin lengthy has been struck by the singularity of focus for kids in China. “Your path is just about chosen,” he says. “You’ll go to highschool typically, and play tennis loads.” That, nevertheless, didn’t essentially create nice tennis gamers, in Allin’s opinion.
The game requires method and ability, but in addition thrives off of creativity and the power to regulate on the fly. The basics-driven method in China didn’t enable that aspect of the sport to flourish. “What I’ve discovered is, the youngsters who keep in China are typically extra one-dimensional,” Allin says. “They may hit a wall for hours, play on the baseline, however it was virtually robotic.”
Allin inspired Nidunjianzan, who he thought had actual expertise, to broaden his horizons and invited him to his house in Dallas. “A kind of summer season tennis camp,’’ Allin laughs. He helped Nidunjianzan and his mom work by the paperwork of getting a vacationer Visa – Nidunjianzan’s mom mistakenly instructed a U.S. customs officer she meant to remain for 3 hours when she meant three months – and set them up with a spot to remain and launched them to American meals. Subway was an enormous hit.
Nidunjianzan was wide-eyed on the varied ethnicities and cultures in America and that, coupled with the tennis instruction, pushed him and his household to hunt out a extra everlasting U.S. house. They landed on IMG Academy, which, earlier than it turned an all-sports behemoth, was based by Nick Bolletieri as a tennis academy in Bradenton, Fla. Nidunjianzan arrived as an 8-year-old, granted an exception to enroll earlier than the everyday admissions age of 10.
Younger High Nidunjianzan meets tennis nice Pete Sampras. (Courtesy of Princeton Athletics)
Nidunjianzan and his mom moved into an condo proper subsequent to the courts. Within the mornings, he woke to the sound of tennis balls ricocheting across the court docket, and sometimes a view of a professional – Maria Sharapova, Sebastian Korda, Denis Shapovalov – training. For a child raised in a rustic with out even a court docket, it felt like some kind of tennis paradise.
Most days, Nidunjianzan practiced two hours with different athletes, after which spent an extra hour with non-public teaching from Pat Harrison, who ran the professional division. In between he labored with tutors to enhance his English and attended lessons. Gasheng, his mom, spoke no English. A number of instances a month, Nidunjianzan’s sister flew to Florida – she was attending school in Boston on the time – to assist with grocery procuring and different mundane chores, however a lot of the day-to-day life navigation was left to Nidunjianzan.
The pair would go months with out returning to Tibet, which meant months aside for Nidunjianzan from his father, and Gasheng from her husband. Unusually, the sacrifice contributed to Nidunjianzan’s success as a tennis participant. There is no such thing as a place to cover on a tennis court docket, no teammate guilty, or coach to supply a bailout. “Some folks crack, some keep the identical and a few have a capability to raise underneath stress,’’ Harrison says. “High all the time had an inherent ability for dealing with stress conditions.”
But Nidunjianzan additionally carried that stress with him. Although his mother and father by no means compelled him to do something, there’s an implied expectation with cleaving a household in two and shifting internationally to pursue tennis. At one level, Nidunjianzan felt it. The wins weren’t coming with the rapidity to which he’d grown accustomed, and he knew he wanted a reset. “I needed to cease and assume. There’s extra to life than simply tennis, and I can’t put all the things into it,” he says.
Choosing one of many nation’s finest educational establishments might sound counterintuitive to assuaging stress. To Nidunjianzan, heading to Princeton made good sense. Nicely, no less than as soon as he determined he’d be going to varsity.
At IMG there are primarily two tracks – flip professional or go to varsity. For years, Nidunjianzan was on the primary observe, with plans to grow to be a prodigy teenager on tour. However solely the rarefied few actually bolt out of their teenagers and into the tennis stratosphere. Nidunjianzan and his household thought lengthy and exhausting concerning the determination. Although he’d been residing away from house for years, there was extra sacrifice within the singular pursuit of tennis, with no promise of a payoff.
Faculty tennis gamers can compete in skilled tournaments, but in addition have the posh of understanding the kinks of their recreation when it’s not but their full-time job. For Nidunjianzan, that boils right down to harnessing the facility in his recreation – crafting a extra dependable serve and enhancing his transition recreation. “You get the possibility to work in your training, fill the holes of your recreation and take a yr or two to achieve much more expertise,” Harrison says. “The tour will be fairly lonely. It’s year-round, with no actual break. That’s extremely tough.”
Nidunjianzan admits he wanted a bit of convincing. Like every athlete, attaining the professional ranks is the last word objective, and a detour at first felt like a step backward.
That has not been the case. Together with amassing an 18-10 report and incomes first-team All-Ivy recognition enjoying No. 1 singles (and shouldering the inherent pressures that include that place), Nidunjianzan gained his first skilled singles title final yr. In Huntsville, Ala., the unseeded Nidunjianzan blew previous three seeded opponents, together with one-time NCAA singles champion Thai-Son Kwiatkowski, to win the title. He then earned a spot within the quarters at a tourney in Germany and rounds of 16 appearances in occasions in Italy and Spain.
Nidunjianzan missed a lot of the autumn due to a wrist harm – although that afforded him the possibility to go house to Tibet for the primary time in 4 years – and hopes this spring to construct on what he achieved a yr in the past. High gamers on the collegiate ranks earn wild playing cards to the ATP occasions, and for Nidunjianzan, that will be the right transition from the place he’s, to the place he needs to go. “Chinese language tennis, I don’t assume it’s anyplace close to the place it may very well be,” he says. “That’s my dream: to be the participant that makes it come alongside.”
(Illustration: Eamonn Dalton / The Athletic; images: Courtesy of Princeton)