When Andre Ilagan learned he had received a wild card into the U.S. Open qualifying tournament, his first calls went to the people who had been following every turn of his tennis journey: his coaches.
Glenn and Danny already knew the news. Still, Ilagan wanted to connect with them before calling his family.
“I was just happy about it, to get the opportunity to play at the Open,” the 25-year-old Hawaii-born player told TOFA NEWS.
For Ilagan, whose parents are from General Santos City in Mindanao, the invitation represents the biggest Grand Slam opportunity of his professional career. It also puts him three wins from the men’s singles main draw at the U.S. Open, where the sport’s best players will compete beginning Aug. 30.
Ilagan’s qualifying wild card is not a main-draw entry. He is one of nine players granted access to the qualifying tournament, where he must win three consecutive matches to earn one of 16 available places in the 128-player main draw.
The former University of Hawaiʻi men’s tennis standout is the first alumnus of the school’s program to compete at the U.S. Open. He entered the event with a career-high ATP ranking of No. 210 after consecutive appearances in championship matches on the ITF Futures Tour.
Yet as he prepares at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in Flushing Meadows, Ilagan said he is trying not to make the moment larger than it needs to be.
His routine, he said, will remain the same.
“I don’t like to overthink it and say this is a big tournament,” he said. “Just taking it day by day, my routines.”
His central goal is straightforward: qualify for the main draw. But the way he describes his approach reflects a mindset that has carried him from a young child holding a racket in Hawaii to a professional player standing one breakthrough away from a Grand Slam field.
“I think just being able to be on court and trying to figure out solutions to win the match, I think that’s the best thing ever,” Ilagan said.
That problem-solving aspect of tennis is what he enjoys most. A match is never only about power or precision, he said. It is also about adapting, responding and finding answers in real time.
Ilagan began playing tennis when he was about 3 or 4 years old. His brothers played the sport, and he followed them to the court.
At first, he said, becoming a professional was more of a childhood declaration than a settled plan.
“Yes and no,” he said when asked whether tennis had always been his dream. “It’s always been I wanted to play professionally, but I didn’t have the level at the time, so I was just saying it to say it.”
It was during his third year in college that he began to believe the possibility was real.
“That’s where I was like, ‘I think I could play,’” he said.
That realization has brought Ilagan to New York at a consequential moment. The Kalihi native and former University of Hawaiʻi All-American is joining a U.S. Open qualifying field that represents a difficult gateway to one of tennis’ most prestigious stages.
His parents are from General Santos City, and Ilagan said his Filipino heritage informs his approach to competition. He described it as a work ethic built around keeping his head down, working every day and taking advantage of opportunities.
“The Filipino mindset,” he said, “working hard, putting your head down day in, day out, and just take every opportunity as much as possible.”
The growth of Filipino representation in international tennis has made the moment resonate beyond his own career. Ilagan praised the accomplishments of Filipina players Alex Eala and Leylah Fernandez, saying their visibility offers encouragement to Filipinos around the world.
“I think it’s great for the Filipino people all over the world,” Ilagan said of Eala’s success. “It inspires that everyone can make it, with whatever resources they have, that they can find a way.”
He offered the same assessment of Fernandez, whose mother is Filipino Canadian.
For Ilagan personally, however, inspiration tends to come from outside tennis. He said he follows other sports more closely than he follows the professional tennis circuit. His focus is less on measuring himself against any particular player than on discovering his own ceiling.
“To probably just maximize my tennis and see how far I go,” he said when asked about his biggest ambition in the sport.
It is a modest phrasing for an ambition that has already taken him far from his earliest days on court in Hawaii.
For young Filipinos and Filipino Americans hoping to follow in his path, Ilagan’s message was simple: “Just be you.”
He said finding a personal sense of direction matters as much as chasing a result.
“If you can find yourself as a person and find goals that you want to achieve,” he said, “I feel like, in anything, it’s a good feeling.”
For now, Ilagan’s focus is on the next match, then the one after that. Three victories would carry him into the U.S. Open main draw. But whatever happens in New York, the young player who once said he wanted to turn professional has reached a stage where the dream no longer feels hypothetical.
Dr. Georgio Dano is a nurse practitioner, educator, community ambassador and former TOFA honoree whose work spans health care, public service and the arts. He serves with the New York City Police Department and teaches nursing at St. Paul’s School of Nursing, where he mentors future health professionals. Recognized by TOFA among COVID-19 health care workers, Dano is also a tennis player, singer and photojournalist. His community work focuses on education, service and Filipino American empowerment.
