Starting on Friday, Oct. 4, players from the men’s tennis team will travel to Waco to take part in the annual SEC/Big 12 Challenge.
Alongside Texas, the schools representing the Southeastern Conference will be Alabama, Auburn, Florida and Texas A&M. On the other side of the court will be Big 12 newcomers Arizona and Arizona State, along with past rivals Baylor, Oklahoma State and Texas Tech.
As is customary with many tournaments, Texas head coach Bruce Berque is yet to announce which players on the team will be participating. It’s unknown if Berque intends on releasing the roster ahead of time or if he just plans on rolling out with his chosen squad on Friday. Either way, a few players are likely to participate.
Senior Pierre-Yves Bailly seems to be a surefire lock to see action. Though recently suffering two consecutive singles defeats to Martin Katz of Miami and Michigan’s Gavin Young in the recent 2024 ITA Men’s All-American Championships, Bailly’s strong tournament experience will make him an easy choice for Berque. Moreover, Bailly is an extremely valuable doubles player, having demonstrated strong court chemistry with junior Jonah Braswell.
Braswell will almost certainly have a slot in this tournament as well. Braswell, a junior from the athletic powerhouse IMG Academy in Bradenton, Florida, fared better in last week’s challenge than Bailly did, advancing to the singles main draw Round of 16 before being downed by No. 3 Oliver Tarvet from UCSD. As the nation’s No. 29, Braswell exceeded expectations and is playing some of the strongest tennis of his career.
Berque may be without his most valuable asset this upcoming weekend with last weekend’s singles runner-up and the man with undoubtedly the hottest racket on the team: junior Sebastian Gorzny. As the No. 30 player in the 2024 ITA Men’s All-American Championships, the transfer from TCU made it all the way to the finals before being forced to withdraw due to injury before he could play Tarvet. The nature and severity of the injury haven’t been publicly disclosed, so fans can only wait in anticipation to see whether or not he’ll be playing in the tournament.
If Gorzny is still not able to play due to injury, fans should keep an eye out for redshirt freshmen Timo Legout, Rahul Sachdev, Calvin Wang and Evan Burnett to receive some action in the challenge.
