JULIE THU

While we have all experienced LOVE on the court (not scoring in a game or set), few of us have been so lucky as to share the court with our one true love. Brandi Bratek has experienced just that and has a shiny ITF World Championship Mixed Doubles gold medal as proof!

Brandi, a competitor in the 45s age group, grew up in Brunswick, GA. Her dad was a college basketball coach, but also a lover of tennis, and he started tossing her tennis balls when she was just 3 years old.  Back then there were no kids’ racquets, so she played with a wooden racquetball racquet. She had to use two hands on both sides to swing the heavy racquet, and to this day she still hits a two-handed forehand. Through her freshman year of high school, she spent every day in the gym with her dad and his basketball team but was lucky enough to have a racquetball wall to hit on when she decided to take a break from shooting baskets.  Her parents would register her for summer tennis camps, but she never played a tournament until after her sophomore year of high school when she decided to focus only on tennis and no longer play basketball. 

Starting to play tournaments at 16 was a bit of a shock for her because Georgia had some of the top players in the country. She got beaten–a lot! She can still remember one of her first matches playing a girl whose last name was Speed. Losing love & love, Brandi and her dad laughed after at how her last name was entirely appropriate and that she had never seen someone's forehand whiz by so fast. Inspired to improve, Brandi worked really hard and in two years ended up in the top 20 in Georgia and ranked in the top 100 in the South. 

Brandi earned a scholarship to play at Augusta College (now Augusta State University) and then transferred to play at Florida Southern College for her sophomore through senior years.  One of her most memorable playing moments in college came during her junior year.  She ended up playing a girl who had beaten her 6-love, 6-love in juniors. Brandi bested her 6-2, 6-2 that day, and it opened her eyes to how much she had improved, reinforcing all of the hard work she had put in.

Her other most memorable moment was when her best friend and teammate asked her to talk to a guy for her at a party who played at one of their rival colleges.  Four hours into the conversation with him, she had still never brought her friend up.  Bad teammate and friend....perhaps, but she ended up marrying him eventually, and her teammate was her bridesmaid, so all was forgiven!

Post college, Brandi occasionally played USTA league tennis, competing on a team from Savannah that won 10.0 nationals in epic fashion with all three matches coming down to match tie-breaks in the final. Her match was the last one on, and when she won, everyone rushed the court. The USTA even used that footage in their ads during the US Open that year!

Brandi and her husband Wojtek, a native of Germany, never knew age-level tournaments existed until 2012.  He had decided to start playing again and found the USTA Men's 35s Clay Court Nationals, opening up a whole world of tournaments to both him and Brandi.  Their first one together was in 2012 at the 30's Clay Court Nationals, and their second was in 2013 at the 30's Hard Court Nationals, where Brandi won her first gold ball in ladies doubles. From there, she took a seven-year hiatus due to work. 

Brandi studied sports psychology in grad school, but finding it difficult to find a full time job in the field, she coached and applied her performance psychology skills to her lessons.  She coached full time until a friend from grad school suggested she start working with the military doing performance psychology. She initially worked with the Army as a cognitive performance specialist, and they trained her as one of their top level Master Resilience Trainers.  Brandi taught Army Soldiers all around the world skills to be more resilient.  She loved the job, but it prevented her from competing due to the demands of running week-long courses that inevitably seemed to fall during every L1 and World Championship. When she made a change and started working with Air Force fighter pilots, she finally had more work flexibility and was able to start competing again in 2021. 

Brandi feels very blessed to share a love for competing in tennis with her husband. Last year they decided to play the ITF World Championships together in Portugal.  Competing together for the first time in mixed since 2013, they made an epic run through the draw, winning 11-9 in a third-set super tiebreak for the championship.  Brandi says, “It still makes me smile remembering winning match point and turning around to look at him.  I really can't put into words what I felt in that moment. Even if we never do it again, it is special to have won a World Championship with my favorite human on the planet.  We rarely get to play together so when we do I think we both cherish that time because we know that there aren't many husband/wife teams that get to compete and enjoy doing so.”  This year, they are both representing the USA on the Men's and Women's 45s Cup Teams in Antalya, Turkey, and they will try to defend their ITF World Mixed Doubles Title in the individual tournament afterwards.

Brandi cannot imagine what her life would be like if she hadn't made the switch from basketball to tennis. She wouldn't have met her husband, or many of the other dear friends she has met through tennis.  She wouldn't have moved all over the US coaching and wouldn't have had a way to quickly meet people who also share a love for the sport. She will be moving next month from Texas to Panama City Beach, Florida. Without a doubt, she’ll be able to plug into her next home and find a new tennis community willing and eager to welcome her there.