After a strong performance on the ATP Challenger Tour, where he won 13 out of 15 matches and secured a title in Winnipeg, Liam Draxl took a break from tennis to surf in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Draxl traveled with his girlfriend Hunter, who introduced him to surfing. He described his early experiences as challenging.
“I remember it was just wipe out after wipe out after wipe out,” Draxl told ATPTour.com with a laugh. “Getting up on a wave and riding a wave is just a feeling I can’t describe. It’s pretty unreal.
“Just looking onto the face of the wave and seeing that water slowly peel in front of your eyes and feeling that kind of speed and push that the wave is sending you is pretty special. Whether they are big or small, fun rides or long rides, or even wiping out, it’s fun. I love it.”
Draxl improved his surfing skills through online tutorials and practice. He recalled catching his first wave during an earlier trip to Halifax. Currently leading the ATP Challenger Tour in match wins this season with 39 victories, Draxl uses outdoor activities like fishing and golfing to disconnect from tennis.
“Usually I’m on the ATP app, I check all the results and I love to watch it, but out there, I was like, ‘Whoa, I have no idea what’s going on in Washington, or at the Bloomfield Hills Challenger’,” Draxl said. “I was just totally disconnected for a few days.”
Liam Draxl says he was “hooked right away” on surfing. Credit: Liam Draxl
The timing of this break coincided with his preparation for making his tour-level debut at the National Bank Open Presented by Rogers in Toronto as a wild card entrant against Pablo Carreno Busta. Carreno Busta won the Canadian ATP Masters 1000 event in Montreal in 2022.
Draxl grew up attending this tournament every summer as a child from Newmarket in the Greater Toronto Area.
“Every summer, most days I’d be at the tournament,” said Draxl, whose father Brian is a tennis coach. “It was just fun to hang out there in the summer with my other tennis friends and we’d play the little games on the grounds, mini tennis or try to hit the target.”
He remembered asking professional players for sweatbands and towels as a child and getting a photo with Gael Monfils—now both are competing at this year’s event.
“Growing up as a kid going to this tournament every summer and I was once a little kid dreaming to play this tournament thinking, ‘Wow, it would be sick if I could play this tournament’,” Draxl said. “And here I am, dreams are coming reality.”
Draxl turned professional in 2023 after three years as an ITA All-American at the University of Kentucky. His fellow Canadian Gabriel Diallo often played alongside him during college matches; Diallo recently won his first tour-level title at ‘s-Hertogenbosch and is currently ranked World No. 35.
“I just remember he actually wasn’t super tall growing up in the juniors,” Draxl said of Diallo, who is now 6’8”. “I think I saw him maybe at under-16s or under-18s like the next summer and all of a sudden I was like, ‘Wow! You grew an insane amount!’ I remember that so clearly. He just had his growth spurt and all of a sudden he was a giant and hitting the ball so big. It was funny.”
Liam Draxl and Gabriel Diallo are both competing at the National Bank Open Presented by Rogers. Credit: Andrew Eichenholz/ATP Tour
Draxl has won two Challenger titles—Calgary in 2023 and Winnipeg this month—both held in Canada. Before winning Winnipeg he lost six finals (five this year), which weighed on him mentally.
“It was in my head,” he said. “It’s just after you lose three, you just want to win one and it’s tough. I had to stop focusing on the win, like ‘Okay, let’s just go play a good match like it’s a first or second round’. I think the pressure went away a little bit in Winnipeg because I was like, ‘You know what? I’ve lost five or six finals, I’ve already went out there to the final and lost, so what is there to lose now if I just lose another one?’”
A week after winning Winnipeg he finished runner-up in Granby—becoming only the third player since 2022 (after Pedro Cachin and Quentin Halys) to reach seven Challenger finals within one season.