Akira Santillan

Akira Santillan
アキラサンティラン
	Santillan at the 2017 US Open
Country (sports)	Australia (2010–2015, 2017–current) ; Japan (2015–2017)
Residence	Brisbane, Australia
Born	22 May 1997 (age 26); Tokyo, Japan
Height	1.80 m (5 ft 11 in)
Turned pro	2013
Plays	Right-handed (one-handed backhand)
Coach	Mark Woodforde (2017–2018) Marinko Matosevic (2021–present)
Prize money	$453,404
Singles
Career record	2–7 (at ATP Tour level, Grand Slam level, and in Davis Cup)
Career titles	0
Highest ranking	No. 144 (13 November 2017)
Current ranking	No. 389 (2 January 2023)
Grand Slam singles results
Australian Open	Q2 (2017)
French Open	Q2 (2018)
Wimbledon	Q2 (2019)
US Open	Q3 (2017)
Doubles
Career record	0–2 (at ATP Tour level, Grand Slam level, and in Davis Cup)
Career titles	0
Highest ranking	No. 197 (29 July 2019)
Current ranking	No. 249 (2 January 2023)
	Last updated on: 8 January 2023.

Akira Santillan (アキラサンティラン, Santiran Akira, born 22 May 1997) is an Australian tennis player. He represents Australia in competitions, though he played for Japan from 2015 to 2017.

Early life

Santillan was born in Tokyo to a Japanese mother and a South African father of Spanish descent. He lived the first 8 years of his life in Japan before his family relocated to the Gold Coast, Australia and became citizens. He played much of his junior tennis at the Gold Coast before moving to Brisbane to join the national academy program at the Queensland Tennis Centre.^{[citation needed]}

Junior career

On the junior tour, Santillan has a career high ITF junior ranking of 7 achieved in September 2015. Santillan's major highlights on the junior tour included a semi-final at the 2015 Australian Open and doubles finals at the 2014 French Open and the 2015 Wimbledon Championships.

In March 2015, Santillan opted to play under the Japanese flag instead due to a fractious relationship with Tennis Australia.^[1] He returned to playing under the Australian flag in 2017.

Junior Grand Slam finals

Doubles

Result	Year	Championship	Surface	Partner	Opponent	Score
Loss	2014	French Open	Clay	Lucas Miedler	Benjamin Bonzi Quentin Halys	3–6, 3–6
Loss	2015	Wimbledon	Grass	Reilly Opelka	Lý Hoàng Nam Sumit Nagal	6–7^(4–7), 4–6

Professional career

Santillan has a career high

ITF Futures

doubles title.

Santillan made his ATP main draw debut at the 2016 Generali Open Kitzbühel, receiving singles and doubles main draw wildcards.

Santillan lost in the first round of the 2022 Australian Open – Men's singles qualifying.^[2]

Challenger and Futures/World Tennis Tour finals

Singles: 14 (8–6)

Legend (singles)
ATP Challenger Tour (1–0)
ITF Futures/World Tennis Tour (7-6)

Titles by surface
Hard (8-5)
Clay (0–1)
Grass (0–0)
Carpet (0–0)

Result	W–L	Date	Tournament	Tier	Surface	Opponent	Score
Win	1–0	Apr 2015	Thailand F1, Bangkok	Futures	Hard	Kento Takeuchi	6–3, 6–2
Loss	1–1	May 2015	Thailand F2, Bangkok	Futures	Hard	Andre Dome	4–6, 7–6^(9–7), 1–6
Win	2–1	Apr 2016	Spain F7, Madrid	Futures	Hard	Steven Diez	6–4, 7–6^(7–5)
Loss	2–2	Apr 2016	Spain F11, Mostoles	Futures	Hard	Antoine Escoffier	4–6, 7–6^(7–5), 3–6
Win	3–2	May 2016	China F7, Wuhan	Futures	Hard	Chung Yun-seong	6–1, 6–4
Win	4–2	May 2016	China F8, Luan	Futures	Hard	Finn Tearney	6–3, 1–6, 6–4
Win	5–2	Jun 2016	Spain F18, Palma del Río	Futures	Hard	Rémi Boutillier	7–5, 6–3
Win	6–2	Dec 2016	Spain F39, Cuevas del Almanzora	Futures	Hard	Roberto Ortega Olmedo	6–1, 6–1
Win	7–2	Jul 2017	Winnetka , USA	Challenger	Hard	Ramkumar Ramanathan	7–6^(7–1), 6–2
Loss	7-3	Feb 2022	M25 Canberra, Australia	World Tennis Tour	Hard	Dane Sweeny	3–6, 6–4, 5–7
Loss	7-4	May 2022	M25 Monastir, Tunisia	World Tennis Tour	Hard	Yasutaka Uchiyama	6-7^(3-7), 7-6^(7-5), 3-6
Win	8-4	May 2022	M25 Monastir, Tunisia	World Tennis Tour	Hard	Li Zhe	2-6, 7-6^(7-3), 6-2
Loss	8-5	Jun 2022	M25 Mungia, Spain	World Tennis Tour	Clay	Inaki Montes-De La Torre	3-6, 5-7
Loss	8-6	Mar 2023	M25 Portimão, Portugal	World Tennis Tour	Hard	Gonçalo Oliveira	6-7^(2–7), 4-6

Doubles: 17 (9–8)

Legend (doubles)
ATP Challenger Tour (2–5)
ITF Futures/World Tennis Tour (7–3)

Titles by surface
Hard (8–5)
Clay (1–3)
Grass (0–0)
Carpet (0–0)

Result	W–L	Date	Tournament	Tier	Surface	Partner	Opponents	Score
Loss	0–1	Mar 2016	Spain F6, Tarragona	Futures	Clay	Gonçalo Oliveira	Marc López Jaume Munar	7–6^(7–4), 3–6, [7–10]
Loss	0–2	Apr 2016	Spain F8, Madrid	Futures	Hard	Carlos Gómez-Herrera	Carlos Boluda-Purkiss Alex de Minaur	4–6, 4–6
Win	1–2	May 2016	China F7, Wuhan	Futures	Hard	Harry Bourchier	He Yecong Wang Aoxiong	4–6, 6–2, [10–7]
Loss	1–3	Jul 2016	Segovia, Spain	Challenger	Hard (i)	Joaquín Muñoz Hernández	Purav Raja Divij Sharan	3–6, 6–4, [8–10]
Loss	1–4	Oct 2016	Ningbo, China, P.R.	Challenger	Hard	Stefan Kozlov	Jonathan Eysseric Sergiy Stakhovsky	4–6, 6–7^(4–7)
Win	2–4	Dec 2016	Spain F39, Cuevas del Almanzora	Futures	Hard	Peter Bothwell	Roberto Ortega Olmedo David Vega Hernández	6–2, 5–7, [10–2]
Win	3–4	May 2018	Savannah, USA	Challenger	Clay	Luke Bambridge	Enrique López Pérez Jeevan Nedunchezhiyan	6–2, 6–2
Loss	3–5	Sep 2018	Zhangjiagang, China, P.R.	Challenger	Hard	Bradley Mousley	Zhang Ze	w/o
Win	4–5	Nov 2018	Kobe, Japan	Challenger	Hard (i)	Gonçalo Oliveira	Li Zhe Go Soeda	2–6, 6–4, [12–10]
Loss	4–6	Apr 2019	Nanchang, China, P.R.	Challenger	Clay (i)	Alex Bolt	Tristan-Samuel Weissborn	2–6, 4–6
Win	5–6	Feb 2022	M25, Canberra, Australia	World Tennis Tour	Hard	Rubin Statham	Calum Puttergill Naoki Tajima	6–4, 6–3
Win	6–6	Mar 2022	M25, Bendigo, Australia	World Tennis Tour	Hard	Philip Sekulic	Dane Sweeny Li Tu	7–5, 6–7^(7–9), [10–7]
Loss	6–7	Mar 2022	M25, Medellín, Colombia	World Tennis Tour	Clay	Rubin Statham	Benjamin Lock Courtney John Lock	6−4, 4−6, [6−10]
Win	7–7	May 2022	M15, Monastir, Tunisia	World Tennis Tour	Hard	Skander Mansouri	Xin Gao Zhe Li	6–3, 6–0
Win	8–7	May 2022	M25, Monastir, Tunisia	World Tennis Tour	Hard	Aziz Dougaz	Théo Arribagé Luca Sanchez	7–6⁽⁷⁻¹⁾, 7–6⁽⁷⁻³⁾
Win	9–7	Jun 2022	M25, Martos, Spain	World Tennis Tour	Hard	James Frawley	Adria Soriano Barrera Benjamin Winter Lopez	6–7⁽⁷⁻⁹⁾, 6–3, [10−6]
Loss	9–8	Jan 2023	Nonthaburi, Thailand	Challenger	Hard	Christopher Rungkat	Yuki Bhambri Saketh Myneni	6–2, 6–7^(7–9), [12–14]