Ivan’s older brother Kevin Smith, who played college tennis at Pacific, is among the high level players playing in the tournament. This week’s tournament was put together with that in mind. Ivan, who turns 21 on Tuesday, faces a long, arduous and expensive journey, but the San Diego-area tennis community is doing whatever it can to make that path as smooth as possible. It’s very sad, but we’re just trying to do everything we can to help out and hopefully have him recover from this.” But we’ve stayed in touch over the years. We kind of went our separate directions a little bit (for college).
“We used to compete with each other, practice with each other. “He’s been a good friend of mine,” Nakashima told. In May, Nakashima flew back between playing in the Italian and French opens to attend and promote a fundraiser for Ivan at the Balboa Tennis Club.
San Diego native and current ATP top 50 ranked player Brandon Nakashima has been a friend of Ivan’s since the two were budding stars on the Southern California youth tennis scene and has lent his support. The goal is to get him in a place where we can get treatment to help him as much as possible. “Obviously it’s just a shocking thing to happen to a healthy young athlete whose entire future is ahead of him. “He’s trying to stay as positive as he can,” Gary Smith said. Ivan’s father and Balboa Tennis Club board member, Gary Smith, said the main focus now is getting Ivan stabilized to the point where he can travel to participate in an experimental treatment program at a place such as Chicago’s well regarded Shirley Ryan Ability Lab, which specializes in paralysis research and rehabilitation. Since April 5, he has been lying on his back but still maintains a good attitude.” Under the doctor’s strict orders to lay flat, the bone infection is healing and his temperature is stable but he has lost a lot of weight.
Icab smitg update#
Balboa Tennis Club member and family friend Michelle Ford has helped organize fundraising for Smith’s care and provided this update when promoting the tournament and GoFundMe: “Ivan has had five surgeries, yet he is recovering and making progress.