An Incredible Story: Brian Baker

Written by: Staff on 23rd May 2012

An Incredible Story: Brian Baker |

Ever since the Indian Wells Masters event, I’ve been keeping my ear close to the Brian Baker story. It’s incredible the amount of times he’s had surgery. And now he’s beating Monfils on clay in France and through to the quarterfinals in the Nice, France 250 event. I remember searching his name on the ATP website just to see a bit of his match history a couple weeks ago. I was a bit saddened by the fact he’d only amassed around $15k since January. (Maybe we should all start supporting Nadal when he goes off on the ATP about spreading the money around!) Anyway, so far this year he’s won a couple tournaments coming all the way from qualifying and absolutely obliterated everyone in the draws. He’s posted solid results in futures and challengers but now this quarterfinal result will definitely give him confidence for the French Open (He is the recipient of the USTA’s wildcard into the main draw). In his current form they should’ve sent this guy to play for the USA in Dusseldorf instead of Roddick!!!

Baker used to be a top 5 junior in the world in both singles and doubles back in 2003 so I guess he was destined to play high-level pro tennis. It’s just unfortunate that he was sidetracked for about 4 years due to injuries. Despite all that, I believe this is a great story of motivation for any tennis player out there. He began playing professional events again after the 4 year layoff back in July of 2011, and now almost a year later, he’s top 200 and thriving. It just goes to show that you can be down match point and still comeback.