The Friday before the start of Roland-Garros, I found myself seated courtside, alongside perhaps three or four fans, watching two strange legends rally. Out on the clay were Mansour Bahrami, the mustachioed trick-shot connoisseur, and Su-wei Hsieh, arguably the most advanced junkballer of the past decade. You might be wondering what it’s like when two players notorious for their spontaneity set out to attempt something as regimented as “practice.” I can assure you there’s no metronomic hitting of perfect topspin drives along boring crosscourt trajectories. Instead, with these two co-conspiring, practice felt like a random shot generator. Grips never before seen. A series of two-handed slices absolutely ripped from above shoulder height. Drop shots, lobs, tweeners. On a minute-by-minute basis it was about as entertaining as any competitive tennis match I saw that week—true sublimity for the fan of deviant tennis. Earlier that year, Hsieh, then 38, had announced that she was retiring from singles competition. While she was to continue her successful doubles career, I was sad that her singular shot selection would no longer be gracing the singles court.

Her game seemed like a vestige of a bygone era when low-powered, unorthodox styles were still viable. Before the optimization of technique filtered most of the true oddities out of the universe; before the power-baseline game became the blueprint for tennis development the world over. Little did I know, Hsieh would find a spiritual successor before the season was even through. Aoi Ito, a 20-year-old from Japan, was ready to inherit that kooky shot selection. The first clips I saw of Ito were from her WTA debut at the 250 in Osaka last fall. As soon as I saw the shocking quantity of forehand slices leaving Ito’s racquet, I knew the game was in good hands. It was a compelling story. Ito had not been much of a presence in junior tennis. She started the 2024 season ranked outside the top 400, and after that run in Osaka—from the qualifiers all the way to the semifinals—she got a foothold inside the top 200. She would finish the season at No. 127. This week, she’s on the cusp of breaking into the top 100, having made it to Saturday’s final at the Canberra WTA 125; after that, she’ll presumably try to qualify for her first major tournament in Melbourne.

How far can a tennis player get on the WTA in 2025 with a game premised on pure touch and deft angles? That’s what I’m eager to find out. The tour is squarely in the era of Aryna Sabalenka and Iga Swiatek, heavy ball-strikers exploring the limits of power and topspin. But perhaps there’s still an ecological niche for an utterly relaxed junkballer to occupy. I highly recommend watching some of the highlights from this week. Ito’s philosophy could be boiled down to anti-rhythm. The opponent never gets to see the same type of ball twice in a row. While she can crack a flat drive when necessary, she is most eager to hack spinny off-speed shots all over the court. It looks like the late stage of a hitting session where your legs are dead and you’re just futzing around—only if that were executed with a frightening degree of feel, by someone who was not actually tired at all. Her light serve and casual, unhurried steps between shots further belie the dangerousness of her game.

According to a great recent interview with Alex Macpherson, Ito seems to have a personality to match her play style. She views tennis as a role-playing video game, which lets her enjoy advancing the rankings. She likes playing tennis but has barely watched it as a fan, which must partially explain how she honed such an unorthodox style. “I don’t care at all whether I play like everyone else or not,” she said. Frustrating opponents brings her happiness. Her team consists of her parents. Mom worked for a travel agency and plans out her itineraries; dad played tennis for fun when younger and offers tactical advice. Her dad is also a big Su-wei Hsieh fan. But Ito herself hadn’t really ever seen her predecessor play. Asked which WTA player she’d most like to play, she picked herself. Troll-y tennis, troll-y answers. It’s all so coherent.