The last five years for Carson Branstine as a junior and college tennis player have not been easy. Injuries and four surgeries, including on both hips, have sidelined the Irvine native throughout her young career.

But finally healthy since the start of the year, Branstine has been playing some of her best tennis ever and been on an Alcaraz-like run of good fortune these past four weeks that have included her biggest pro singles title at an ITF W75 ($60,000) in Sumter, S.C., and also leading her Texas A&M team to its first-ever NCAA team title. 

With a degree in hand and now officially a professional and having represented Canada since 2017, the 23-year-old Branstine has broken into the world top 350 with her sights set on a hugely successful rookie WTA season. 

“It’s going to be a crazy, crazy summer,” said Branstine, mid-tournament week in Sumter, where she beat her college teammate, top Aggies’ player Mary Stoinia in the first round on her way to her fifth pro singles title and eighth overall. “Tennis Canada is helping me with my tennis schedule and I do a bunch of modeling stuff too. I figure I’m only young once so I might as well embrace it and do as much as I can.” 

Branstine said she is currently without a home training base and doesn’t travel with a coach. She tries to spend as much time in SoCal as she can and works with Mitch Bridge in Long Beach when she is here, like she recently did for two days following the NCAAs. 

“I’m pretty much on my own,” said Branstine, who also consults with her sister Constance who is now a full-time tennis coach at IMG in Bradenton, Fla. 

Branstine reached No. 4 in the ITF world junior rankings in 2017, the same year she decided to sign on with Team Canada. She won back-to-back Australian and French Open juniors doubles titles with future US Open champion Bianca Andreescu in 2017. 

“It’s one of my best decisions I’ve ever made,” Branstine said of joining Team Canada. “It’s not one thing that outweighs the others. I’m a first generation American on my mom’s side and it’s just something I grew up around. It’s always been such a big part of my life.

Branstine, who grew up in the City of Orange and is the first cousin of LA Dodgers star Freddie Freeman, was a double-transfer having committed to USC but sitting out as an injured redshirt in 2019-20. She landed at the University of Virginia in 2020-21 amid the Covid crisis but had to sit out another year before heading to College Station. 

“It’s crazy to think I never played a dual match until my junior year at Texas A&M,” said Branstine, an ITA All-American in 2022 in singles and in doubles in 2023. After the fall semester, Branstine felt antsy and left school to play ITF pro events, winning a W35 in Tunisia and making the final in two others in February and April. 

She felt compelled to return to College Station for a visit and spoke to her coaches about coming back to the team before the start of the SEC tournament and NCAAs. “I was still eligible and had never signed with an agent or anything like that,” Branstine said. “I was in Tunisia and all I could think about was my team back home.”

All of the sudden, No. 13 Texas A&M became the favorites to win it all for the first time. With Branstine at No. 2 singles playing next to No. 1 Stoinia, she won the first set in her match against No. 7 Georgia, but fell in the second. “I actually had match points in the second set,” she said. “I swear I wasn’t nervous and wasn’t tight. I just wanted to keep playing I was having so much fun.” 

In the third set Branstine raced out to a 5-0 lead, but on Court 3 Aggie teammate Nicole Khirin was also about to clinch her match. “I looked over at her and we smiled,” Branstine said. “I mean, at that point you know you’re about to win the national title.”

She added: “No, it hasn’t sunken in yet that we actually did it. I mean, you’re taking all these photos and doing media and it’s your last match ever. But when I sit by myself now and think about it, it’s pretty cool and something I’ll be able to tell my kids about someday.”