Michigan State men’s tennis is having a youth movement of sorts. Led by freshman sensation Ozan Baris, MSU is out to accomplish a number of "firsts."
One first that the Spartans accomplished this season is qualifying two different entries to the NCAA Championships for the first time since 2007. Baris qualified as a singles player, while Baris and sophomore Max Sheldon qualified as a doubles pair.
“They’re a huge part of our young core going forward,” head coach Harry Jadun told Spartans Illustrated. “(I’m) excited for them to have this opportunity. We’ll see where it goes. Hopefully, this is a standard we set with our program and it’s not just a one-year thing.”
Baris grew up in nearby Okemos, Michigan, a town of over 24,000 people that neighbors East Lansing. He and his older sister, Sema Melek, were raised by a single mother, Banu Basaran. Baris used to go by Ozan Colak. However, he changed his last name to Baris, his middle name, due to his father not being a presence in his life.
Despite his successes as a tennis player, Baris was not dead set on playing the sport when he was younger.
“I started playing tennis when I was like 5 (years old),” Baris said to Spartans Illustrated. “I was between basketball and tennis.”
Eventually, Baris had to choose between tennis and basketball as it was getting hard on his single mom.
“I was going from tennis practice to basketball practice,” Baris continued. “She said, ‘All right, you have to pick one,’ and I picked tennis.”
One benefit to Baris choosing tennis was that his sister also played. They had private lessons with a coach that they would participate in together.
“It was something we could do together,” Baris said about the private lessons. “Once a week, we’d play together with a coach. It was pretty cool to be able to do that.”
Current Michigan State men’s tennis head coach Harry Jadun has known Baris since the current freshman was 7 years old. Jadun was still a teenager when he first met Baris. Jadun played for MSU from 2011 to 2015, so Baris has been connected to the MSU program through Jadun for many years.
“Ozan was big for his age, but mentally, he was very, very young,” Jadun said when asked about his first impressions of Baris. “Ozan was a funny kid. He had huge feet, way too big for his body. He was super gumpy. He wore goggles. I always tell him he’s gotta bring the goggles back.
“When he lost, he would lose it. He would start crying and throwing his racket and this and that. Obviously, it’s been a long journey since then, but he was always a good kid. I really think that his mom has been very good for him and has really raised him the right way. He’s very respectful and humble even though he’s had a lot of success. Me and Ozan go way back. It’s been a really fun journey for him and (I'm) excited to see what the future holds for him.”
Jadun knows what it’s like to be around Baris. He pointed out that he and the coaching staff push Baris to be the best he can be because of the high standards that he sets for himself.
“He’s always focused,” Jadun said about Baris. “He takes feedback, and he incorporates it immediately. He’s always open to having discussions. He’s super coachable. I also think that he’s just very passionate about tennis. His goals are very, very high. I think that allows us to really push him past what maybe we push other players because Ozan has very, very lofty goals. He wants to be one of the top ATP (Association of Tennis Professionals) players in the world. He wants to win grand slams.”
Baris’ career started to pick up in seventh and eighth grade as he started to travel all throughout the country playing in youth tournaments. As a result, he had to miss school on occasion, but he was also able to get a portion of his schoolwork done while traveling.
“It was pretty tough,” Baris said about his youth travel schedule. “They (teachers and administration) were really accepting of it and supportive as well. Obviously, it was a bit of a challenge … but it was a good thing for me because I was able to work on time management and discipline. There’s definitely challenges and pros and cons of it, but for me, I had so much fun playing all those tournaments that it was always worth it.”
Because he grew up in Okemos, Michigan State was the hometown school for Baris. Besides campus being close to home, there were many other reasons why he chose to become a Spartan.
Baris wants to be a professional tennis player and he believes the coaching staff and the familiarity he has with them, specifically Jadun and assistant coach Mike Flowers, can help him get there.
“I’ve known Harry and Mike (for a long time),” Baris said. “I met Mike when I was 9 years old. I remember watching Mike play at Michigan State when I was 8 years old. I’ve been around them for a long time and I trust them with my game."
The players on the team already also had an influence on Baris and where he chose to play his college tennis. Baris had already built relationships with what would be his future teammates.
“I’ve known most of them for a long time as well, so I was joining people I already knew,” Baris said about his teammates.
Before the college tennis season started, Baris played in the U.S. Junior Open in September 2022. He participated in both the Boys’ Singles and Boys’ Doubles draws. Baris was knocked out in the second round of the singles competition. However, he and doubles partner Nishesh Basavareddy, who currently attends Stanford, took home the Boys’ Doubles title. Baris and Basavareddy won the final in straight sets (6-1, 6-1). It was certainly a great win to build momentum heading into the college season.
“That one was really fun,” Baris said about the U.S. Junior Open. “Possibly, I could say it was the biggest win of my career. It was just really cool to end my junior career winning a grand slam.”
Baris added that winning a “one of a kind” tournament like the U.S. Open, although it was at the junior level, was “really special.”
Playing both singles and doubles is normal at the collegiate level and at the professional level. While the sport is still the same, there are plenty of nuances that force players to adjust when they go from one discipline to the other.
“Honestly, there’s a lot of differences,” Baris said. “In doubles, I feel like it’s really who’s more aggressive. Who returns and serves better is huge. It’s a little more precise. You want to be hitting the right spots. In singles, it’s almost like a battle of will. It’s a slower game. Fitness is more involved.”
Baris plays with a lot of energy. During his matches, he can be spotted being vocal and letting his emotions out after a hard-fought point. When playing doubles, he and his partner bounce energy off of each other.
“In doubles, since you’re playing with a partner, there’s a lot of energy coming between the two of us,” Baris continued. “You can get really loud in doubles. In singles, I still get pretty loud … but it’s different because it’s not as fast-paced.”
Tennis is a unique sport as there are moments of high intensity during points as players go back-and-forth. But there are also moments in between points to refocus and reset. Finding the balance between those two time periods in a match is a critical part of the mental side of the game.
“When the point starts … you give everything,” Baris said. “I give everything for this point and then when the point is over, I can feel those emotions.”
While the mental game is important, fitness and conditioning are also a big part of the game. Deep into matches or deep into tournaments, whichever player can kick it into the next gear typically has a better chance at winning the match.
“It’s kind of that mindset of giving my all,” Baris said. “That’s why I work on my fitness so much. There are moments I kind of just try to remind myself … I’m playing someone across the net. It’s not just me out there. I just have to beat the person across the net. As long as I can do that, it doesn’t really matter how I feel.”
Baris’ great season was rewarded as he secured an at-large bid to the NCAA Division I Men’s Tennis Singles Championships in Orlando, Florida. Baris and his doubles partner, Sheldon, will also compete in the NCAA Division I Men’s Tennis Doubles Championships. The singles draw has 64 total players while the doubles draw has 32 pairs. Both tournaments will be held this week after the team competition, which MSU did not qualify for, was held this past week.
“The next step for them is hopefully they can get All-American status,” Jadun said. “They've just got to win two matches there. From there, the next first they can do is compete for a national title. I just feel like in the NCAA Tournament, especially with a lot of players playing in the team competition, they’re going to be a little bit tired and banged up … You can win every single match (and) you could lose every single match. Everybody’s good, but also everybody has weaknesses, and everybody struggles as well. I’m excited for them.”
This is the first time that the Michigan State men’s tennis program will be represented at the NCAA Championships since 2015. The Spartans that competed at the 2015 NCAA Championships were none other than Jadun and his doubles partner John Patrick Mullane. Jadun and Mullane made a run all the way to the semifinals that spring. The last singles player to represent the Green and White at the NCAA Championships was Nick Rinks in 2007.
Alongside those accomplishments, Baris earned All-Big Ten first-team honors this season. He was also named the Big Ten Freshman of the Year. Baris was the first Spartan to be named Big Ten Freshman of the Year since 1993.
There is no doubt that Baris is having a positive effect on the MSU program as a whole. Baris has occupied the No. 1 singles position for the Spartans this season. An important aspect of a championship tennis program is having a great player at the No. 1 singles spot to set the tone for the rest of the team.
Jadun said that competing for Big Ten titles or national championships “doesn’t happen without having a leader” like Baris.
“He’s definitely a flag bearer for us on the court,” Jadun said about Baris. “One thing that this program has really struggled with in the past is just having that guy at (number) one singles where you look at him and he’s the favorite. I think that it gives our guys a lot of confidence to take care of their own courts because they know that the guy that they practice with every single day … is better than the person that’s across the net from them when they’re playing a match.”
It’s widely known that Baris has a bright future in tennis. He’s played in all four grand slam tournaments — Australian Open, French Open, Wimbledon and U.S. Open — at the junior level and he’s making his presence known at the NCAA level.
“I think his limit is what he sets his mind to,” Jadun said about Baris’ future on the court. “If he wants to be one of the top professional players in the world, I think that it’s not going to be easy to get there, but I think eventually he will get there. He has the determination. He has just the God-given ability of the way he can hit a tennis ball, the way he can compete.”
Off the court, Baris is involved in the community to help grow the game. He’s especially working with local kids because he was once that local kid trying to find his way.
“He’s a guy that’s always helping out with our wheelchair tennis program,” Jadun said. “He’s always interacting with local kids because he knows he was a local kid. I just hope he continues to do that as his platform gets bigger and bigger.”
Baris has dreams of playing professional tennis. That’s part of the legacy that he wants to be known for. He also wants people to remember him for being himself.
“I was always myself,” Baris said when asked about what he wants his legacy to be. “You just couldn’t fit me into a box. I just want to be authentically me.”
Baris plays his first match of the NCAA Championships on Monday, May 22 at 11:30 a.m. Eastern Time. He will battle Harris Walker from Harvard.
The first match for the pair of Baris and Sheldon will be on Tuesday, May 23 against Toby Samuel and Connor Thomson of South Carolina. The time for that match is still to be determined.
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