Mackenzie McDonald is an American professional tennis player who was born on April 16, 1995, in Piedmont, California, United States. Following a successful junior career, McDonald quickly got involved in the US tennis college system, which helped him improve his already burgeoning talent.
After dabbling on the ITF and ATP Challenger Tours, the American was already making his main ATP Tour debut. Not only that, it came at the prestigious ATP Masters 1000 event in Cincinnati. He ended up losing to seasoned pro David Goffin, but having already won two qualifying matches to get there, there were plenty of positives to take from the week.
Despite debuting early on in his career, it did not open the floodgates as he would have hoped. Turning pro in 2016, McDonald struggled to find appearances and, therefore, results on the main tour for the first few years.
By 2018, he was making more regular appearances on the main circuit, with his debut Grand Slam win coming in January of that year at the Australian Open. That was not season done and dusted by no means, with the American keen to continue some good form.
A somewhat breakthrough came for him on the grass of SW19 at Wimbledon when he reached the fourth round of the prestigious tournament after beating Nicolas Jarry in five sets and Guido Pella in the third round. Keen to build on his progress from the 2018 season, 2019 offered some key highlights for him, grabbing his first Top 10 win when he beat Juan Martin del Potro in the quarterfinal of the Delray Beach Open.
After a combination of injury and COVID-19-hit seasons kept him out of regular competition for a while, the American returned in 2021, hitting the ground running. He reached the fourth round of the Australian Open, losing to none other than Daniil Medvedev.
2021 was also the first time he reached an ATP-level final, narrowly losing out to Jannik Sinner at the final hurdle of the Citi Open in Washington. Similarly, good runs of form helped him throughout the next couple of years until he broke into the Top 40 in late 2023.
