By Aidan O’Connor | Sports Writer
Adversity can oftentimes rattle and break the morale of teams. This is not the case, though, for head coach Michael Woodson and Baylor men’s tennis. They have learned from their first-round postseason exit against San Diego last year and are hungry to take on the 2025 season after a dominant fall.
“This team is special top to bottom, and we believe that,” Woodson said. “We’ve seen it in fall competition and matches.”
On the heels of hosting the NCAA Individual Fall Championships, the Bears saw many players grow and succeed. Senior doubles partners Marko Miladinović and Oskar Brostrom Poulsen made it to the Sweet 16 in the NCAA Individual Championships and became the No. 3 ranked men’s doubles team in the nation. In singles, the 2024 ITA Texas Region Player to Watch, sophomore Devin Badenhorst, continued his success as he became the No. 25 men’s singles player in the nation.
“Certain schools get branded in certain ways, and ours was branded international, and I really think we should be both. We should have the best Americans coming to Baylor and the best international players coming to Baylor,” Woodson said
Aside from the success during the fall, the Bears were able to recruit two five-star American players, Blake Anderson and Drew Hedgecoe. The duo will be on the court in Fall 2025 but will work with the heavy senior class this spring to up their game before their freshman seasons.
“We all bring a lot of individual confidence into the spring, but we want to be really excited as a whole team because we put in some great, great practices, too,” Brostrom Poulsen said. “And individual success is great, but we’re all here to be part of a team that accomplishes something special.”
Over the summer and fall, there was a recurring message: focus on success as a team. Woodson encouraged players not to feel isolated from their matches but to be a part of a larger machine and culture. The mental shift from college tennis to the pros allowed the Bears to find leadership and motivation right next to them.
“Our leadership has been great the last few years. This group has taken some of the things that they’ve liked from previous years and have added some things. I think the sacrifice that Oskar and Marko have made in particular over the last several months has impacted the team positively,” Woodson said.
Brostrom Poulsen and Miladinović head into their final year as captains due to their experience, leadership and on-court success. Coming in the spring, Woodson said that the biggest area of growth was in how they handled adversity. No matter the challenge, they feel mentally prepared and credit a tough fall slate to future success.
“Our goals are the trophies, and with these two matches, we can get a really good picture of what we can improve and what we are doing good, too,” Miladinović said.
The Bears (2-1) started their season with wins over Lamar and Abilene Christian before being swept by No. 4 Wake Forest. Baylor faced off with No. 2 TCU Monday night at the Hawkins Indoor Tennis Center and will return to action at 4 p.m. Sunday against SMU at the Styslinger/Altec Tennis Complex in Dallas.
