Ben McLachlan

Ben McLachlan (マクラクラン 勉, Makurakuran Ben; born 10 May 1992) is a Japanese professional tennis player who previously represented New Zealand.

He attended Wakatipu High School and then joined the California Golden Bears at the University of California from 2011 to 2014, along with his brother Riki, who has since become Ben's primary tennis coach.

Former player and family friend Lan Bale recommended the brothers to University of California head tennis coach Peter Wright when they were 12 and 13 years old.

McLachlan has represented Japan in the Davis Cup since 2017, and also competed at the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo, reaching the quarterfinals in both men's and mixed doubles.

McLachlan was born in Queenstown, New Zealand.

His mother Yuriko is Japanese and his father Craig is Kiwi.

McLachlan took regular trips to Japan as a child, learning "reasonably fluent" Japanese, and switched to representing Japan in 2017.

Bale and Thomas Shimada helped to facilitate the change of allegiance, in order for McLachlan to take advantage of the funding and support on offer from the Japan Tennis Association.

He is a doubles specialist with a career-high ATP ranking of world No. 18, achieved in November 2018.

McLachlan has won seven doubles titles on the ATP Tour, including three at ATP 500 level.

He reached his first Grand Slam semifinal at the 2018 Australian Open alongside Jan-Lennard Struff, and has reached four further major quarterfinals in men's and mixed doubles.

McLachlan got engaged to Georgia Brown, a personal trainer whom he has known since primary school, in December 2020.

He won three ATP Challenger doubles titles, at the Internazionali dell'Umbria, Gwangju Open and Kobe Challenger.

He was selected in the Japan Davis Cup team in September, being Japan's top-ranked doubles player at that time.

In October, he caused a surprise by winning the Japan Open, his first ATP World Tour event.

He and his partner Yasutaka Uchiyama beat Jean-Julien Rojer and Horia Tecău, the world's third-ranked pair, in the quarterfinals and then Jamie Murray and Bruno Soares, the fourth-ranked pair, in the final.

McLachlan played his first Grand Slam tournament at the Australian Open, partnering German Jan-Lennard Struff to reach the semifinals after defeating the top-seeded and world No. 1 pair of Łukasz Kubot and Marcelo Melo.

In the semifinals they lost to the seventh-seeded team of Oliver Marach and Mate Pavić, who went on to win the tournament.

McLachlan then teamed with Hugo Nys to reach the finals in Montpellier, where they lost to English brothers Ken and Neal Skupski.

They lost in the semifinals of the Delray Beach Open to the eventual winners Jack Sock and Jackson Withrow.

After first-round losses at Acapulco (partnered by Nicholas Monroe) and Indian Wells, and a second-round loss in the Irving Classic (the latter two with Julio Peralta), he and Struff teamed up for the first time since the Australian Open to contest the Miami Open.

After good wins in the first three rounds, they came up against the Bryan brothers in the semi-finals, and lost to the eventual winners 5–7, 4–6.

He then travelled to Houston for the U.S. Clay Court Championships, where he partnered Ryan Harrison for the first time.

In a major upset, they lost to the wildcard pair of Dustin Brown and Frances Tiafoe in the first round.

From there it was across to Europe, and the Monte Carlo Masters.

Yet another new partner (Santiago González) awaited him, and they went out in the first round to a wildcard pair in local Romain Arneodo and McLachlan's former partner in Hugo Nys.

Reunited with Struff for the Hungarian Open, they won their first two matches comfortably before being beaten in three tie-breaks in their semifinal against Andrés Molteni and Matwé Middelkoop.

McLachlan went on to Istanbul for his next tournament, partnered again by Monroe, and they were the top seeds.

They went all the way to the final, losing in a match tie-break after taking the first set.

In Madrid they beat John Isner and Jack Sock in the first round and Ivan Dodig and Rajeev Ram in the second, before losing to Pierre-Hugues Herbert and Nicolas Mahut in the quarter-finals.

McLachlan's last stop before the French Open was in Lyon, where he paired up with Marcin Matkowski for the first time, losing in the first round in a match tie-break.

Reunited with Struff at Roland Garros, the pair suffered a surprise defeat at the hands of Marcelo Arévalo and Jamie Cerretani in the first round, losing in three sets.

He also played mixed doubles for the first time, his partner being Makoto Ninomiya, but they lost in the first round to second seeds Latisha Chan and Ivan Dodig.

Ninomiya would go on to be runner-up in the women's doubles with Eri Hozumi.

For their first grass-court tournament together, McLachlan and Struff went to Stuttgart, where they lost in the first round.

They changed partners so that Struff would have a fellow German with him at Halle, and McLachlan teamed up with Japanese No. 1 Kei Nishikori, a very infrequent doubles player.

It was not an auspicious start, as they were beaten in straight sets by Marcel Granollers and Robin Haase.

McLachlan's last tournament before Wimbledon was at Eastbourne where, teaming up again with Matkowski, they suffered the same result as in Lyon – a first round loss.

At Wimbledon McLachlan and Struff dropped only one set in their first three matches on the way through to the quarter-finals.

They lost there in four sets, the three which went against them all being tie-breaks, to Frederik Nielsen and Joe Salisbury.