“If only he could serve…”
“Imagine if he had a job…”
Those are the kinds of comments that accompanied Student Tien in the early stages of his professional tennis career. And they are unfair, too. The 20-year-old will be the first to admit that his performance is one of the weaknesses in his game.
Well, it gets better. And it actually gets better faster.
Tien hit 20 aces in a 6-4, 6-7(4), 7-6(5) win over Miomir Kecmanovic in the second round of the Delray Beach Open on Thursday afternoon. That’s right. Twenty. That’s sort of the best-of-three line service-bot number.
Ironically, Tien lost in a third game tiebreaker in the second round of the 2025 Delray Beach. In that match, the lefty recorded just three aces as he fell to Matteo Arnaldi 7-6(4), 4-6, 7-6(1). By comparison, Arnaldi fired 24 aces. No question, it’s hard to win tennis matches when you’re losing the ace battle by 21.
Tien knew he had to work on that shot, and that’s exactly what he did.
“I spent a lot of time on it, really,” explained the world number 23 after passing Kecmanovic. “It’s still a work in progress; I don’t think it’s a perfect product by any means. But I’m seeing improvements in some games, and it’s very encouraging.”
Thursday’s game wasn’t completely out of the question. Tien hit as many aces as Marin Cilic in the first round in Dallas last week (nine each). During his recent Australian Open quarterfinal run, Tien hit double digits in aces – including 21 against Marcos Giron in the first round.
Furthermore, the California native won 85 percent of his first set points against Kecmanovic (45 out of 55). Yes, a lot of that has to do with aces. But a big part of it is setting up points with service-plus-one techniques and taking early control of the circles with well-placed serves.
And when Tien has the upper hand in a circle, he rarely relinquishes it. His base game has never been and never will be in question. That part of his game is already world class. If the server can even come close to holding up its end of the bargain, Tien’s power is limitless.
A notable part of his postgame interview Thursday was that he said his progress is “encouraging.” Not “satisfied” or anything like that. He points to progress but knows it can – and should – be even better.
And if that happens, the rest of the trip better watch out.
