By Randy Walker
@TennisPublisher
Tristan Boyer is breaking through to the top levels of professional tennis.
The 24-year-old Californian is on the verge of moving into the top 100 of the ATP World Tour rankings, buoyed by his first career singles match victory at the U.S. Open with a first round win over James Duckworth of Australia.
However, while Boyer has been building the foundation for his professional tennis career, his hometown of Altadena, California is still struggling to start to rebuild after the devastating wild fires almost completely destroyed the suburban Los Angeles enclave in January.
“Altadena is really devastated and still hasn’t really started to build up yet,” Boyer said. “There’ve been some cleanup, but I think Altadena is still not doing great. And just driving through, there are still blocks and blocks, you drive through it and it looks like it’s a war zone. It’s just completely destroyed for square miles of just area.”
The wild fires swept through numerous Southern California communities in January while Boyer was advancing into the main draw of the Australian Open through the qualifying rounds and winning his first career Grand Slam tournament match. Boyer’s father, Chris Boyer, was evacuated but his family’s home was spared from destruction.
“It’s my hometown. It’s my favorite place on earth,” Boyer said. “I hope that we’re able to rebuild how it was before and keep the community and ideally not have big constructors come in and change the situation of the town. But obviously, it is what it is. But I think it’s still very much a real situation. It’s definitely not over. Everyone who is homeless is still homeless who had their house destroyed. There hasn’t really been that much starting of construction yet. It’s definitely tough to see, but I hope that we’re able to get it going soon again.”
The Altadena Town & Country Club, where Boyer first learned to play tennis, burned down to the ground and may not be reconstructed. The public facility at Farnsworth Park also was destroyed but the other Altadena public courts at Loma Alta Park have reopened the Boyer has practiced there and participated in some fundraising events there since the fires.
Boyer praised 1978 U.S. Open singles finalist and International Tennis Hall of Fame member Pam Shriver, who lives in Southern California and is the President of the Village Rising Foundation (https://villagerisingfoundation.org/), that was founded by former International Tennis Hall of Fame fundraiser Ilise Friedman, for being a major fundraising arm to help communities affected by the fires. Shriver’s efforts were profiled in the Los Angeles Times (as you can read here https://www.latimes.com/sports/story/2025-08-24/pam-shriver-palisades-altadena-fires) hooked to the start of the 2025 U.S. Open, where Shriver is working as part of the commentary team for ESPN.
Ranked No. 113, Boyer was given a main draw entry into the U.S. Open via a wild card given to him by the U.S. Tennis Association. He was fortunate to draw “lucky loser” James Duckworth, an Australian ranked No. 106 who had lost in the final-round of the qualifying tournament and rightfully took advantage of his opportunity and won his first career U.S. Open main draw match by a 6-3, 7-5, 6-4 scoreline.
“The atmosphere was just awesome, super electric,” Boyer said of this first-round win played on Court 6 at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center. “I have a lot of family members here, but really the crowd got super into it. It was just great. It was a great atmosphere and really good win. I think I played a solid match, pretty routine, a couple of special moments, but relatively routine match. That was really good. I’m happy with how I’m playing and I’m just happy to have gotten a wild card in the main. Grateful and I’m happy to play.”
