Catching Up with Canes: Tarik El-Bassiouni

HurricaneSports.com recently caught up with former Miami tennis players to talk about their current career as well as their college years in Coral Gables.  

Check out our recent conversation with Tarik El-Bassiouni, who graduated in 2002. 

Where do you live now and what are you up to these days?
I live in Northeast Pennsylvania, back at my hometown where I grew up. I’m in wealth management, where I am a financial advisor with Morgan Stanley. I have got three beautiful kids. My wife and I have been married for almost eight years.

What is your fondest memory of playing in Miami?
By far the relationships. We had great success and great wins, but above everything else is the relationships that I developed. The guys that I played with are still today the best friends in my life. They were the guys at my wedding, so that’s the biggest thing.

Do you still keep in touch with any of your teammates? And if so, which ones?
Yeah absolutely. We are in constant contact, we try to get together once a year. My best friends are the ones that I played with, especially Michael Lang, Joel Berman, Jose Lieberman, Andrew Golub, Johan Lindqvist and Arpad Odry.

How has having a degree from Miami helped you?
It’s fantastic. Whenever someone asks where you went to school and you say Miami, they of course they immediately think you must have had a great time, which is true. But what’s been great is since we’ve graduated, the school academically has consistently just gotten better and better and better. So, almost like a hot stock, our degree has gotten more and more priceless as we’ve gotten older.

Since leaving UM, have you followed the teams? And if so, what has impressed you the most?
Yeah, we love Miami tennis. We’re always following it, keeping up to date. We were really excited when a few years after we graduated, the team did really well. They might’ve gotten back to the Sweet 16 in the NCAA Tournament, which was certainly a high moment since we left.