Brayden Michna, a native of Taylor, has begun to blaze a nice career for himself in the sport of tennis.
“I am from Taylor, born and raised, and I remember my love of tennis started because I just like to hit things,” Michna said while chuckling. “But, I also remember taking a picture of me with a tennis racket at Murphy Park and I was in love with tennis then, and I still am now.”
Michna has put in a lot of work to reach certain goals in his tennis career, and it is paying off in a big way. His day starts with practice hitting the ball. Michna said he starts his practice at 9:30 a.m. and sometimes continues until 2:30 p.m.
Michna’s hard work has elevated his game to such a degree that he is currently ranked second in Texas and ranked 13th nationally. With all of his training, Michna had to transition to being homeschooled to make sure his academics did not fall behind because of his training.
“I am home schooled, so it is really flexible and I can go hit and get off the court at 2:30 in the afternoon and I can go back and finish my school work,” Michna said. “We are obviously different from regular schools, so I can just go and do my school work whenever I can get to it and focus more on training, and it has helped a lot.”
Currently a senior, Michna plans on graduating and making the next step in his athletic and academic career. Michna has already accepted a scholarship to continue his tennis career at Texas A&M University, which was a dream come true for the young athlete.
“I am Aggie everything, football, basketball, baseball just everything,” Michna said. “I have been a fan of them since I was a kid, so to finally get that call and have them offer me a scholarship was a dream come true, because I always wanted to go there.”
While Michna is excited to get to Texas A&M, he said his ultimate goal is to compete on the grand tennis stages and leave his mark on the sport.
“I obviously want to go pro at some point,” he said. “That’s been the goal since starting this journey. I have wanted to go pro and play in as many Grand Slam championship tournaments as
possible.” Michna will be starting his career at Texas A&M this fall, but for now he will continue his training to elevate his game to try and chase down the goals he has set for himself.
