BATON ROUGE, La. \u2013 LSU Men\u2019s Tennis head coach Danny Bryan announced on Tuesday that Michael Bassem Sobhy has committed to joining the program. The Egyptian will suit up for the purple and gold as a graduate transfer in the fall of 2026.<\/p>\n
Bassem will become the first Egyptian-born player since Tamer El Sawy to play for LSU. El Sawy was the consensus first option for the Tigers for three successful years (1991-93). He earned multiple All-America and All-SEC First Team honors, cementing his status as a top player nationally as he made a semifinal run in the 1993 NCAA singles tournament.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are fired up to add Michael to our program,\u201d said Bryan. \u201cDuring the recruiting process, what really stood out to us was his professionalism and the way he has handled himself competing at a high level. He has had success in both singles and doubles, which we were impressed with as well.\u201d<\/p>\n
Speaking on LSU\u2019s ties to the sport in Egypt, Bryan added, \u201cLSU\u2019s history with Egyptian tennis, led by Tamer El Sawy, was certainly meaningful throughout Michael\u2019s recruiting process. Tamer was one of the best players in LSU history, rising as high as No. 3 nationally in college before going on to reach No. 126 in the ATP rankings and serve as captain of the Egyptian Davis Cup team. It\u2019s exciting to see another top Egyptian player choose LSU and continue that connection.<\/p>\n
Michael\u2019s level of play is impressive, but what I love most about watching him is the way he competes and his body language. That type of attitude and competitiveness is going to translate so well to college tennis.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bassem carries a 13.68 UTR (Universal Tennis Rating) in singles and a 13.32 in doubles. In the ATP rankings, he currently holds a spot as the No. 527 player in the world in singles, as well as No. 510 in doubles \u2013 both career-highs.<\/p>\n
Just under a month ago, Bassem secured his second consecutive singles title in Hurghada, following up his 2025 M15 crown with an M25 title this year. (M15 champions earn 15 ATP points, while M25 champions earn 25.) He has been equally dominant in doubles, claiming titles at the 2026 installments of the M25 Hurghada and the M15 Sharm El-Sheikh.<\/p>\n
With four ITF titles to his name, Bassem will bring his talents to Baton Rouge carrying strong momentum and the opportunity to carve out his own chapter in LSU history.<\/p>\n
For the latest updates, follow @LSUTennis on Instagram, Facebook, and X.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BATON ROUGE, La. \u2013 LSU Men\u2019s Tennis head coach Danny Bryan announced on Tuesday that Michael Bassem Sobhy…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":16794,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[5794,5795,2831,644,5793,5791,5792,1055,28],"class_list":["post-16793","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-geaux-tigers","tag-homepage-feature-headline","tag-latest-news","tag-louisiana","tag-louisiana-state-university","tag-lsu","tag-lsu-tigers","tag-men-s-tennis","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16793","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16793"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16793\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16794"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16793"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16793"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16793"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}