{"id":19707,"date":"2026-05-09T20:41:06","date_gmt":"2026-05-09T20:41:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/19707\/"},"modified":"2026-05-09T20:41:06","modified_gmt":"2026-05-09T20:41:06","slug":"from-tokyo-to-lehigh-how-family-friendship-and-tennis-shaped-kosei-ogata","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/19707\/","title":{"rendered":"From Tokyo to Lehigh: How family, friendship and tennis shaped Kosei Ogata"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cTennis or golf?\u201d<\/p>\n

At 10 years old, Kosei Ogata and his younger brother Somei sat together in their Saratoga, California, living room as their father gave them exactly two sports to choose from.<\/p>\n

\u201cBasketball,\u201d said Kosei confidently.\u00a0<\/p>\n

His brother chose football.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, tennis,\u201d their father said.<\/p>\n

And so it was decided.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Eight years later, that decision has taken Kosei Ogata from Tokyo to California to the Lehigh men\u2019s tennis team, where the first-year has gone 7-5 in singles and 9-6 in doubles while helping Lehigh finish 6-1 in Patriot League play.<\/p>\n

But before daily tennis practices, national rankings and college recruiting, Ogata was a karate student in Tokyo.<\/p>\n

He started the martial art at 4 years old. By 6, he and his brother were walking to the dojo on their own, and by 7, he was nationally ranked.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cKarate definitely shaped me more as a person \u2014 (I\u2019m) very disciplined \u2014 and I think that was also the reason why my dad put me into karate,\u201d he said. \u201cLooking back, it feels like my dad had a plan for everything. It\u2019s a lot more than just a sport. The way you act when you\u2019re there, it teaches you respect.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ogata said if his family had stayed in Japan, karate would have remained his main sport.<\/p>\n

But that changed when they moved to California.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Without a dojo, Ogata had to find something new. At an all-sports summer camp, he tried everything from golf to basketball \u2014 and quickly gravitated toward basketball.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe played during recess,\u201d he said. \u201cBut also (since) my parents wanted me to learn English quicker, my mom put me into an after school care program where I would stay and hang out with kids from 3 to 7, and we would play basketball all day long.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even as basketball became his passion, tennis never fully went away.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Every afternoon at 3 p.m., Ogata\u2019s father brought his siblings and him to the tennis courts, building a routine that eventually helped shape him into a four-star recruit, a former top-30 national player and runner-up at the USTA Level 1 Indoor Championships in U18 doubles in Overland Park, Kansas.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"First-year Kosei Ogata celebrates after scoring a point against his opponent from Lafayette College on April 24, 2026, at the Ulrich Varsity Tennis Courts. Ogata went 7-5 in singles and 9-6 in doubles this season. (Nolan Coen\/B&W Staff)<\/p>\n

Still, he came into that success with some begrudgement.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cNow, I think my relationship with my dad and tennis is way better, but if I\u2019m being honest, there was a time where I absolutely hated tennis and I absolutely hated going to practice, and I despised it because he and I would fight a lot,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Before joining Eagle Fustar Tennis Academy, Ogata\u2019s father served as his primary coach. Even after he joined the academy, his father continued coaching alongside academy instructors.\u00a0<\/p>\n

While that dynamic was difficult at times, Ogata said it ultimately brought them closer.<\/p>\n

At Fustar, Ogata said the relationships he built became just as important as the training.\u00a0<\/p>\n

When Ogata was 8 and Julien Simonian was 10, the two met at a tournament.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He also met academy teammates Arnav Bhandari and Vidyuth Anand through junior tennis.<\/p>\n

Simonian said their friendship became more like family over the years.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI think our friendship is like a brotherhood,\u201d Simonian said. \u201cHe has many siblings, but I don\u2019t have any. So it was kind of like a younger brother relationship because I was integrated into his family, with family events and trips.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

And Ogata said it was Anand, in particular, who helped change the way he viewed tennis.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe wanted me to be better in every way, so he really made me reevaluate everything in my life, and that\u2019s when I started viewing tennis as important,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

For the first time, Ogata said his motivation shifted from trying to improve for his father to genuinely wanting to improve for himself.\u00a0<\/p>\n

That shift \u2014 along with years of weekday practices, long weekend sessions and thousands of hours on the court \u2014 eventually led him to Lehigh.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"First-year men\u2019s tennis player Kosei Ogata stands at the Ulrich Varsity Tennis Courts. Ogata originally wanted to focus on basketball before tennis became the sport that brought him to Lehigh. (Mariel Kavanagh\/B&W Staff)<\/p>\n

Lehigh coach Craig Schwartz said Ogata stood out early in the recruiting process, not because of one standout skill, but because of how complete his game was already.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cBy talking to him in the recruiting process, I really liked his mindset and wanted to maximize his potential in college and see where he can take his game,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

At Lehigh, Ogata said the biggest adjustment has been embracing a team-first mentality.\u00a0<\/p>\n

On a small roster made up of players from places including Canada, Spain and Brazil, he said college tennis has taught him to think beyond himself \u2014 whether that\u2019s supporting teammates from the sidelines, learning from upperclassmen or preparing to one day lead by example.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s team-first all the time, that\u2019s what we focus on,\u201d Ogata said. \u201cEverything you do on and around the court has to be for the team. Even if you\u2019re not playing, you\u2019re on the sidelines, you\u2019re cheering for the team. (It\u2019s about) having a bigger purpose than yourself.\u201d<\/p>\n

Schwartz said that mindset, combined with the discipline Ogata shows in training, competition and academics, has already made him someone he believes can eventually help lead the program.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s a guy (who\u2019s) already shown by example on what he does on and off the court, how he takes care of himself \u2014 his body, academics,\u201d he said. \u201cI could see him being a leader for the program in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Ogata, the sport he once didn\u2019t choose has become the one he now chooses for himself.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"First-year men\u2019s tennis player Kosei Ogata hits a forehand Tuesday, April 14, 2026, at the Ulrich Varisty Tennis Courts. Ogata was a four-star recruit in the Class of 2025. (Max Randall\/B&W Staff)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cTennis or golf?\u201d At 10 years old, Kosei Ogata and his younger brother Somei sat together in their…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":19708,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[15664,8,15665,15666,15667,52],"class_list":{"0":"post-19707","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tokyo","8":"tag-5-minute-read","9":"tag-japan","10":"tag-mens-tennis","11":"tag-morethanagame","12":"tag-profile","13":"tag-tokyo"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19707","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19707"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19707\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19708"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19707"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19707"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19707"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}