Akira Santillan
Akira Santillan is a Japanese tennis player. He represents Japan in competitions, though he played for Australia from 2010 to 2015, and from 2017 to 2025.
Early life
Santillan was born in Tokyo to a Japanese mother and a South African father. He lived the first 8 years of his life in Japan before his family relocated to the Gold Coast, Australia and became citizens. He played much of his junior tennis at the Gold Coast before moving to Brisbane to join the national academy program at the Queensland Tennis Centre.Junior career
On the junior tour, Santillan has a career-high ITF junior ranking of 7 achieved in September 2015. Santillan's major highlights on the junior tour included a semi-final at the 2015 Australian Open and doubles finals at the 2014 French Open and the 2015 Wimbledon Championships.In March 2015, Santillan opted to play under the Japanese flag instead due to a fractious relationship with Tennis Australia. He returned to playing under the Australian flag in 2017, before switching back to Japan in 2025.
Professional career
Santillan has a career-high ATP singles ranking of 160 achieved on 24 July 2017. He also has a career-high ATP doubles ranking of 265 achieved on 17 July 2017. Santillan has won 6 ITF Futures singles titles and 1 ITF Futures doubles title.Santillan made his ATP main draw debut at the 2016 Generali Open Kitzbühel, receiving singles and doubles main draw wildcards.
Santillan lost in the first round of the 2022 Australian Open – Men's singles qualifying.
Challenger and Futures/World Tennis Tour finals
Singles: 18 (12–6)
| Result | W–L | Date | Tournament | Tier | Surface | Opponent | Score | |||||||||||||||
| Win | 1–0 | Thailand F1, Bangkok | Futures | Hard |  dts|May 2015Doubles: 17 (9–8)
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