The following interview was edited for clarity and brevity.<\/p>\n
Kate Archer Kent: What does it mean to you to qualify for the U.S. Open?<\/p>\n
Reese Brantmeier: Growing up in the U.S., that\u2019s the tournament you watch as a little kid, and that\u2019s kind of what you picture in your head when you say \u201cpro tennis.\u201d This is going to be my first appearance in the singles main draw, so it\u2019s just such a special moment for me and a really huge milestone in my career.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s the best of the best. It\u2019s going to be the highest ranked players in the world. I\u2019ve previously played in the qualifying draw, which is held the week prior, and that is to earn an opportunity into the main draw. The main draw is the real deal.\u00a0<\/p>\n
KAK: How much of a step up in competition are you anticipating against the pros in New York?<\/p>\n
RB: That\u2019s going to be a new experience for me. It\u2019s luck of the draw to see who I play, and that top-20-in-the-world level is something that I really haven\u2019t seen before. College tennis has really been bridging that gap between collegiate and the professional level. We\u2019re seeing a lot of success from past collegiate players in the main draw.\u00a0<\/p>\n
My freshman year, for example, when we won the national title in 2023, in the final I was playing against Diana Shnaider, who I believe is top 20 in the world now and will be playing in the main draw at the U.S. Open as well. She was at NC State during my freshman year. So that stage is an adjustment, and playing at that level, mentally, the atmosphere, all of that comes into play. But the level itself is definitely getting closer and closer between collegiate and the professional level.<\/p>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Reese-Brantmeier-US-Open.jpg\")
Whitewater native Reese Brantmeier previously competed in U.S. Open qualifiers but will participate in the singles main draw for the first time this year. Photo courtesy of Reese Brantmeier<\/p>\n
KAK: How do you find community in the sport, outside of the team environment that you felt at UNC?<\/p>\n
RB: Tennis can definitely be a lonely sport. But getting to play for a team is so rare, and it was such an incredible opportunity, and it\u2019s something that I enjoyed so much at UNC. So that\u2019s definitely something I\u2019m trying to cultivate going into my pro career now.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not as much like in college tennis where it\u2019s 10 girls out there playing alongside you, but in the same way, you\u2019re forming a team of your coach, your athletic trainers, your fitness coaches. The people you surround yourself with become your team in that way. Even though I\u2019m no longer playing for North Carolina, I\u2019m definitely trying to still represent them in what I do going forward, and connecting myself to that organization bigger than myself is really meaningful to me.<\/p>\n
KAK: You started winning national tournaments at age 14. Have you gotten used to the pressure of those big moments? Or do the nerves still get in the way?<\/p>\n
RB: I think you don\u2019t really get over nerves. You just get used to managing them. Winning national championships at 14 and my most recent national championship at the NCAA level, it\u2019s really not that different. At the end of the day, you\u2019re out on the court and you want to win, and that pressure really is similar. So yeah, it doesn\u2019t go away. You just adjust and learn different ways to manage it while you\u2019re out there.<\/p>\n
KAK: When you\u2019re down a set or you\u2019re staring at match point, how do you keep your mind in the game or how do you stay positive?<\/p>\n
RB: I think that\u2019s the beauty of tennis. It\u2019s not like basketball or football, where you\u2019re bound by this time constraint, and when you\u2019re down, it\u2019s impossible at a certain point to make that comeback. With (tennis), it really can turn at any point. So I always just try to focus as much as I can on the point in front of you. That\u2019s the only thing that you have control over, that next point that you\u2019re about to play. And that\u2019s what matches are: just stringing together points.<\/p>\n
KAK: How did your upbringing in Whitewater shape your tennis career?<\/p>\n
RB: It is so special for me to be from such a small town, and especially somewhere where tennis is not super popular. It\u2019s really common that you see professional tennis players coming out of California or Florida or places where tennis is a little bit more accessible. <\/p>\n
But I think that\u2019s what made tennis so special for me. It was something that was really my choice. No one in my family played tennis. It was never something forced on me. It was never even something that convenient. It was always something I really had to seek out and wanted to do.<\/p>\n
KAK: You started the nonprofit Reese Brantmeier Project to support tennis back home. Can you tell us about this project and what you\u2019re trying to do?<\/p>\n
RB: So there are two community tennis courts in my hometown of Whitewater, Wisconsin, that were built in the 1960s by the former principal of Washington Elementary, which is where I went to school. When I started playing tennis when I was 8, they were pretty demolished. They were locked up. There were no nets. There were cracks everywhere. There were trees growing in the middle. They just got taken by time a bit, and they were totally unplayable.\u00a0<\/p>\n
When I started playing, my parents would drive me an hour every single day to the closest tennis club. We would sit outside at our school and look at these courts, and I just wished, \u201cOh, it would be so much fun if I could play here with my friends.\u201d But instead, we have to drive this far every day. <\/p>\n
So it started as an idea. I got the opportunity to start the Reese Brantmeier Project to raise money to rebuild these tennis courts and bring grassroots tennis back to Whitewater, and that was so special for me because it was so meaningful to me from when I was 8 years old and seeing the impact it has on the next generation of kids in that community.\u00a0<\/p>\n
We fundraised, and we were able to break ground last summer and have two completely free, 24\/7 accessible-to-the-community tennis courts. We accepted donations of tennis rackets and tennis balls that we distributed to all of the local schools and public libraries, so we were really trying to lower any financial barrier to tennis, because that\u2019s unfortunately something that can keep a lot of kids out of the sport. Especially in the community of Whitewater, a significant number of those families are economically disadvantaged, and tennis is really not popular because it\u2019s just simply not an option for a lot of those families. We wanted to make sure everyone had the opportunity to experience tennis at any level.<\/p>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Reese-Brantmeier-Project-sign-scaled.jpeg\")
The Reese Brantmeier Project raised money to rebuild free community tennis courts in Whitewater last summer. Photo courtesy of Reese Brantmeier<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Reese Brantmeier could have gone pro as a tennis player right out of high school. The native of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":869916,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[442],"tags":[49,48,44,82,593],"class_list":["post-869915","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-news","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/869915","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=869915"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/869915\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/869916"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=869915"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=869915"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=869915"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}