Engineering News, September 12, 2005

September 12, 2005 Vol. 77, no. 3F

ADVANTAGE BRIAUD: A knack for analysis gives IEOR senior Patrick Briaud a tennis edge. That and the fact that he’s been playing since five years old. (Photo Credit: Rachel Jackson)

He’s game: IEOR senior concludes Cal tennis career and goes professional

On a hot summer afternoon, IEOR senior Patrick Briaud warms up, rallying with a fellow member of the Cal men’s tennis team. Unlike his match play, Briaud’s movements during practice are relaxed, even languid. The racquet meets the ball with a solid thwunk. He works the baseline, then moves to the net, racquet flashing in short, calculated punches.

Briaud looks like he’s been doing this since he was born, which is almost true. He started tennis at age five, when his dad, an engineering professor at Texas A&M University, began to coach him. This spring, Briaud finished a successful college tennis career, making it to the first round of the 2005 NCAA Championships in doubles. In May, he was the featured speaker at the athletic department’s student athlete awards banquet, where he collected a Pac-10 intercollegiate post-graduate scholarship and the Intercollegiate Tennis Association’s Arthur Ashe regional leadership award. The fanfare over, he relinquished the team captain spot and hung up his Cal jersey. But he didn’t stop playing tennis.

“This summer I’m giving professional tennis a trial run,” he says. So far he’s played in three professional tournaments and earned $700. But fortune and fame aren’t the draw. “I want to experience the professional tennis life and visit new places. I want to take a period of time and devote myself to it.”

The College Station, Texas, native knows about devotion. In high school, he won the 5A State Championship in singles, but he had to forfeit dances, homecoming, and football games to do it. His whole family spent weekends traveling together to tournaments. At Berkeley, Briaud didn’t make the men’s traveling tennis team his freshman year. Still, he practiced with the team, lifted weights, ran shuttle sprints and hit the stadium stairs in hopes of improving. The engineering projects, homework, and problem sets piled on thick and heavy. By his junior year, an IEOR professor told Briaud to transfer out of engineering if he wanted to continue tennis. He quit neither. His current GPA is 3.53.

“The greatest feeling was getting done with a test Friday morning and having all Friday afternoon to practice on the court and forget about it for a while. Tennis was a great break,” he says.

Not many students can manage the Berkeley Engineering curriculum and college athletics. “It wasn’t that bad,” Briaud says. “You might be late for something every once and a while, but you prioritize.” Academics always came before tennis, but the two lent themselves to each other. “Like engineering, tennis is a mental game. You have to analyze and assess patterns, look for weaknesses, prepare, and study for a match. It’s very similar to engineering,” he says.

Briaud’s analytical nature has tempered his expectations for a professional tennis career. “It’s really hard to make it to the top 200 in singles and even harder to make a substantial career out of it. I’m not going to dedicate 10 years of my life to battle it out.”

After he graduates in December, Briaud will hit the professional circuit, but he’s also eyeing medical school. In the meantime, it’s devotion enough to keep playing.

Read more about Briaud’s Cal tennis career at http://calbears.collegesports.com/sports/m-tennis/cal-m-tennis-body.html.

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