When Elliott Baker committed to Creighton, tennis coach Tom Lilly wasn’t sure if he’d ever crack the playing rotation.
Four years later, Baker will leave Creighton as one of the winningest players in program history. The lone senior on Creighton’s roster picked up a singles win on Sunday – Creighton’s senior day match against South Dakota State – and now has 87 career wins. That total has him sitting in 16th place on the all-time list at Creighton, three wins shy of Paul Delatore in 15th place.
“He came in and worked really hard and he’s just improved,” Lilly said. “He’s been one of the guys that has improved the most maybe in the last 10 years to get to where he is. He’s played as high as No. 2 for us in the singles lineup and a lot at No. 1 doubles.”
While many other high school players focus solely on tennis, Baker was a multi-sport athlete at West Des Moines Dowling Catholic High School in Des Moines, Iowa. However, Baker said he always had confidence in himself.
“I always knew I could play … I knew I had the ability,” Baker said. “If I worked really hard and kept playing a lot, then in college success, would follow.”
He was right. Baker worked his way into the lineup at both singles and doubles right away as a freshman. After getting his feet wet in fall tournament play, Elliot opened the spring season with four straight singles wins including a three-set victory against Nebraska.
However, following the hot start, Baker – and the team as a whole – struggled. Baker amassed a 34-58 overall record in his first two seasons, and the Jays finished below .500 as a team both years. He continued to work on his game, however, and turned things around his junior year, finishing with a 12-9 record in doubles play.
Baker’s senior season has been his best by far. Between the fall and spring, he is 19-6 in singles play and 13-10 in doubles. At 6 feet 4 inches, Baker is an imposing presence whose length allows him to cover a lot of ground on the court.
“For a big guy, he’s really quick around the court,” Lilly said. “He can play a steady game; he can play a power game consistently. He can get into the net. He just has an all-around game that doesn’t really have any holes in it.”
Baker has played primarily alongside 6-foot-4-inch sophomore Jake Norman at the No. 1 singles spot this spring, and the pair has amassed a 6-6 record together. Norman said they both like to play aggressively and use their size to their advantage, making them a difficult duo for opponents to deal with.
After closing last season as the No. 2 singles player, Baker was moved down the lineup and has settled primarily into the No. 5 spot this year, which Lilly said has more to do with the depth and balance of the whole team than with Baker’s play.
“I think he’s handled it great,” Lilly said. “He’s been a great leader for us this year. And he knows the reason why; we are really even at the position. He can play with the guys ahead of him. He’s been really steady and the guys ahead of him have been really steady, and there hasn’t been a reason to move people.”
In addition to sporting a winning record, Baker has also taken home some hardware this season as he was named Big East player of the week following the Jays’ sweep of Nebraska-Omaha on Feb. 20.
“It’s something nice to look back on in maybe 20 or 30 years, to say I had that,” Baker said. “There are a lot of great players in the league, and I just happened to be a little lucky that week. I’ll take it.”
Lilly does not have an assistant coach, and to fill that void, he said he usually relies upon his seniors for help. With nine underclassmen on the team, Baker has had to step up and take on the role by himself.
“I basically told him at the beginning of the year, ‘You’re going to be a part-time player, part-time assistant coach. You have to help me out in a lot of different areas,’” Lilly said. “He’s been really willing to do that; he’s jumped right in and helped out a lot.”
Norman said Baker leads by example, both by working hard and also vocally with encouraging words for the younger players.
Creighton’s home schedule is officially in the books, but the Jays still have two regular season matches remaining before the Big East championships. The Jays will head to Indianapolis to take on Butler on Friday before closing the season against Villanova.
A strong end to the season would give Baker a chance to continue climbing the wins chart. If he can surpass Deltore’s 90 wins, Vinny Means (92), J.T. Christian (93) and Magnus Muller (94) could all be potentially within reach during the Big East Championships.
But for now, Baker is focused more on team wins than individual ones. The Bluejays, now 12-4, are having one of the most successful seasons in program history and set a record for wins through the first 13 matches with 11.
“We’ve had some good teams in the past, but this year we’ve had a good run,” Baker said. “Hopefully we can continue it these last two regular season matches.”