The ATP’s new Breakthrough of the Year award was supposed to be straightforward: recognize the players who made the single biggest leap onto the main tour in 2025. When the shortlist landed last week– Jack Draper, João Fonseca, Jakub Mensik, Valentin Vacherot – one name was conspicuously absent. Learner Tien, the 19-year-old left-hander from the United States, who began the season ranked No. 122 and ends it at a career-high No. 28 with his maiden ATP title, was nowhere to be seen.
The omission has provoked a fairly predictable sharp reaction from tennis fans, and media alike, and it is not difficult to see why.
Tien’s 2025 résumé is the very definition of a breakout. He recorded 32 match wins at tour level, reached his first ATP 500 final in Beijing, and lifted the trophy in Metz in November, coming from a set down to beat Cameron Norrie 4-6, 7-6(4), 6-3 in the final.
Along the way he produced some huge wins, defeating Daniil Medvedev (twice, including his stunning Australian Open 5-set win), Lorenzo Musetti, Andrey Rublev, Ben Shelton, and Alexander Zverev.
By any reasonable metric – ranking improvement (94 places), first tour-level title, first top-10 victory, age – Tien belongs on the shortlist. Instead, the four nominees include Draper, who turns 24 next month and has been inside the top 50 since the spring of 2023.
Draper’s season was undeniably excellent. A 30-9 match record, the final of Madrid and Doha, plus the big one – a maiden Masters 1000 crown at Indian Wells – where he crushed Holger Rune 6-2, 6-2 in the final – propelled him to a career-high No. 4 in June.
Yet the British lefty was already ranked No. 15 at the start of the year and had reached the second week of a major (US Open 2024) before 2025 began. His achievements represent consolidation and fulfilment of long-held promise, rather than the explosive arrival that the award’s title implies.
The ATP’s official wording is deliberately broad:
‘Breakthrough of the Year goes to the player who made the biggest breakthrough on the ATP Tour this season, with consideration given to milestone wins, significant jumps in the PIF ATP Rankings and first ATP Tour titles. Whilst there are no age restrictions, the award is aimed at Next Gen and young players.’
João Fonseca (18) and Jakub Mensik (19) fit the classic breakout profile: rapid ranking climbs, first titles, and eye-catching wins against established names. Valentin Vacherot’s surprise run to the Shanghai Rolex Masters title in October was one of the stories of the year, even if most of the year was hardly discussed. Tien’s body of work over twelve months sits comfortably alongside – and could be argued, surpasses – all three.
Reaction on social media was swift and pointed. Within hours of the announcement, posts questioning the exclusion of Tien had garnered tens of thousands of interactions. “Learner Tien went from No. 122 to No. 28 and won his first title two weeks ago. Jack Draper is 23 and has been top 50 for two years. I’m struggling here,” wrote one bemused tennis fan. Another simply asked: “Did the voters watch any tennis after March?”
Andy Roddick was full of praise for the young American on his ‘Served’ podcast.
“I’ve yet to see him look super tired. He’s always going to have to be fit. He might not knock your head off with power, but he can pick you apart. He can body-shot you, and he’ll stun you with a jab across the chin.
His record against top-10 players is shockingly good for someone who started the year outside the top 100.”
Tien will have ample opportunity to prove the critics wrong in 2026. He is projected to be seeded at the Australian Open and will enter the majority of ATP 500 events directly. The snub, while stinging in the moment, is unlikely to derail a trajectory that already looks steeply upward.
For the ATP, however, the episode is an embarrassment for a category introduced with the explicit aim of spotlighting the tour’s rising generation. The Breakthrough of the Year award has managed to honour several deserving talents – but it has also succeeded in convincing a large portion of the tennis public that the most obvious breakthrough of all somehow slipped through the net.
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