Gautam Balakrishnan '24 Recruiting Profile

My NCSA Profile

Dear coaches,

I’m Gautam Balakrishnan, a competitive junior Malaysian tennis player.  I’m 17 this year and will graduate from high school in February 2024. I started homeschooling about a year and a half back to pursue my dream of playing high-level tennis. Regardless, I have never neglected my academics which not only gives me confidence as a person but also secures a future plan. Tennis has been a part of me for about 10 years now; through all the bumpy roads I have not regretted a moment that I spent on my tennis career. 

At the age of 7, I held my first ever tennis racquet and I instantly fell in love with it. Running around the tennis court, so enthusiastically only meant how much this sport meant to me. After detailed basic technique nurturing from a local club coach, I began competing in national tournaments, where I was able to showcase my skills and hard work. I have been a deterministic and ambitious person since a very young age which led me to many junior titles in my country. (see attachments) Matter of fact, despite only training 6-7 hours a week I got my first international title at the age of 14 in an Asian Tennis Federation (ATF) tournament that shot my ranking to the top 100 spots. The pandemic hit at a really bad time in my tennis career and caused a performance drop in the later stages of my career. 

Later on, my tennis career got more critical and I needed some high-level training that my parents were not financially able to fulfill. Despite all the challenges, I was motivated to find a proper training base suitable for me. So, I found a good academy that was far from home but very affordable. I was training with top juniors of the country and some ex-national players in the following schedule: 

• Morning session : 7a.m. -  10.00a.m. (Tennis)
• 1 hour of court fitness
• Evening session : 4p.m. to 7p.m. (Mostly consisting of match practice) 

It was indeed really tough for me to balance my school activities with this hectic schedule but I found a way and got a 4.0 GPA in both my sophomore and junior years.

After countless hours of training, my national junior ranking was no.1 and I was able to back it up all year long. This gave me an opportunity to play the Junior Davis Cup in Sri Lanka. This was around the time that I was first familiarized with the college tennis league. It truly sounded like a dream, as training with a solid team and being so strongly united really lifts my spirit as a player. I was willing to do whatever it took for me to get to a good college that would support me academically and lift my tennis to a new level. I started playing ITFs at the end of the age of 16 years (fairly late), and have been trying to expose myself to as many tournaments as I could. Due to limited resources, I had to leave the academy and go back to my hometown. 

I spent more time getting myself physically ready for the upcoming tournaments by putting in more hours in the gym. It also gave me more time to focus on my academics. Although I am still not ranked high at the moment, I have recently gained confidence in that little kid who was so excited to be on the court 10 years ago. I will push myself to reach greater heights to do justice to that little boy’s love for the sport. I do hope that I will be able to showcase my full potential and catch the eye of a college that I fit well into. I appreciate your time and effort in scrolling through my profile and I am looking forward to getting in contact with you.

Best regards,

Gautam Balakrishnan