Oct. 14, 2005

Benjamin Becker, top college tennis player in America the past three years returns home to Texas on Thursday continuing his climb up the professional tennis ladder. Sunday's win at Laguna Niguel California's $10,000 tournament, moved him from #1080 up to #780 on this week's ATP rankings. Benni had to win eight matches including the final where he toppled #1 seed Zach Fleischman, with a 6-4, 6-3 win for his first professional career win.

Benni will next play the USTA Future event, a $15,000 starting Saturday in Arlington Texas. The tournament schedule moves to Texas for the next two weeks.

After completing his college career at Baylor University in Waco ,he announced his turning professional and to begin playing on the ITF and ATP tours. Starting out in his new career, he first wants to offer his response to German tennis great Boris Becker's recent claim that Germany doesn't produce champion tennis players. "This Becker is more than prepared for what lies ahead of me. I've faced tremendous challenges being a foreign student and athlete and conquered all. I'm ready!"

Benni played German club tennis this summer for Neckerau. He returned to Miami in early August and began working and training with world famous tennis coach Tarik Benhabiles. "I've won many matches and became number one at the university level in America and hold most of my school's records in tennis. I am forever grateful to Baylor coach Matt Knoll for giving me this opportunity to play for such a great tennis program. I am moving ahead in my career to play professional tennis. After the NCAA tournaments, I traveled to Florida and met Tarik. I was impressed with his accomplishments not only as a player on tour, but the champions he has developed. I am very excited about having a great coach like Tarik and his staff work with me. It adds to my confidence level and will prepare me for those long hard matches."