Borchard Courts Success on Own Terms

Quinn Borchard shares his surname with one of the region’s most talented athletes but plays a different sport.

His more-celebrated cousin, Joe Borchard, is a former three-sport standout at Camarillo High who plays football and baseball at Stanford and was selected by the Chicago White Sox with the 12th pick of the amateur draft in June.

Quinn Borchard, a recent graduate of Rio Mesa High, found his niche on the tennis court.

“With tennis, it’s really cut and dry,” he said. “You’re either better than the other guy or you’re not, and I like that.

“I played baseball and soccer and basketball when I was younger. I liked team sports and I was pretty good at them. But they were just something I did. It just wasn’t really for myself.”

Borchard said he is drawn to the individuality of tennis.

“I’m self-motivated,” he said. “Nobody’s pushing me to play tennis.”

His family is more closely associated with other sports.

Borchard, 18, is the youngest of Bob and JoAnn Borchard’s five sons. His older brothers focused on baseball and football, and Bob plays in masters-level recreational baseball leagues.

The family has a batting cage in the backyard, like the one at the home of Joe Borchard, whose father, also named Joe, is Bob’s younger brother.

“Nobody in our family has ever really played tennis at all,” JoAnn Borchard said. “It’s a baseball-football family.

“Quinn was just watching Wimbledon one time, and he was like, ‘I want to try that.’ And as soon as tennis came into the picture, the other sports dropped like flies.”

Last week, he finished third among 64 players in the National Interscholastic 18s tournament in Fresno. He will compete this weekend in an Intercollegiate Tennis Assn. summer-circuit tournament in Coto de Caza.

Borchard, 6 feet 2 and 160 pounds, created a buzz in youth tennis circles with a breakout season last year.

Borchard, who will attend the University of Portland on a partial tennis scholarship, was 50-1 in round-robin dual matches playing No. 1 singles for Rio Mesa last season. His loss was to Stanford-bound Joseph Kao of Fullerton Sunny Hills.

Borchard was 52-6 in sets, advancing to the Southern Section individual semifinals before losing to eventual champion K.C. Corkery of Mira Costa. He helped Rio Mesa to an 18-3 record.

Borchard did it with a consistently strong serve-and-volley game that is rare among high school players, most of whom focus on ground strokes.

“He’s got as good of a serve as there is out there, and there’s nobody that volleys the way he does,” said Paul Warkentin of Santa Barbara, who suffered his first singles loss to Borchard last season. “He’s probably one of the only players out there who does it all the time. He does it every time, for better or for worse.”

Borchard, ranked No. 21 in Southern California in the boys’ 18 division, says his improvement comes from playing better competition.

“I’m kind of like a baby on the court sometimes, but I think I’ve gained some real experience now,” he said.

Helping Borchard serve and volley his way to success over the last three years has been Mark McCampbell, his coach at the Oxnard Tennis Center.

“He’s definitely comfortable at the net, and certainly it works for him,” McCampbell said of Borchard. “I don’t think he’s ever going to sit back on the baseline and rally with you for half an hour.”

Not if Borchard can help it.

“I think why I’ve done so well is because [playing serve and volley] is so unusual,” Borchard said. “I think other players don’t see it very often. It’s something that’s more reactions than anything and it’s hard to mimic in practice.”

Aaron Gross, coach of the Portland men’s tennis team, agreed.

“That part of the game takes longer to develop,” Gross said. “You can’t just turn on the net game. You need the experience.”

Borchard could use more experience with ground strokes, which do not come as easily to him as a well-placed serve, a slicing forehand volley, or an overhead smash.

“Unquestionably his baseline game needs some work,” Gross said. “He’s going to have to be able to mix it up and hit with people to some extent in college. But we’ll work on that.”

Borchard, who chose Portland over Notre Dame, Michigan State, Santa Clara and Loyola Marymount, is looking forward to college tennis.

“I’m so psyched to go to college,” he said. “It’s kind of like a mouse trap, and college is the cheese. I just think it’ll really set me off and I’ll be able to develop and grow a lot.”

Gross expects Borchard to be among the Pilots’ top three players next season.

“He’s already in good position,” Gross said. “The foundation’s there, and the thing I like best about him is, he loves tennis.”

Even if he’s the only one in his family who does.