There have been a handful of great Michigan men's tennis players over the last thirty seasons, with the likes of MaliVai Washington, Dan Brakus and Matko Maravic having donned the maize and blue.

In the late 1980s, Washington was the No. 1 ranked player in the country his sophomore season, eventually going on to become a top-15 player on the pro tour. Brakus was an All-American in 1994, and Maravic was All-Big Ten from 2005 to 2008.

And now, Michigan has a player with the potential to be as good, if not better than, the legendary trio.

His name is Evan King.

King, an 18-year-old sophomore from Chicago, is Michigan’s first Big Ten Freshman of the Year since Brakus in 1991. He was also the No. 1 Under-18 player in the country during high school and, in the opinion of Michigan coach Bruce Berque, the most hyped recruit in school history.

In particular, King shares more with Washington than just a school and extraordinary talent — neither are particularly powerful hitters, but both are quick and have balanced all-around games, although King is a lefty and Washington is a righty.

Both also started playing casually with their parents with no future aspirations before realizing their potential and beginning to take private lessons.

“I started playing tennis when I was about three,” King says. “My parents both played casually. They would bring me on the court with them and have me randomly hit balls, and I guess I just picked it up. When I got to be ranked in the top 5 nationally for 12-and-unders, I started to realize, ‘Hey, I’m pretty good at this,’ but even at that point, I didn’t really think about a future in tennis. I was just enjoying myself.”

King attended Walter Payton College Prep in Chicago for two years before moving to Boca Raton, Florida and training with the USTA High Performance program, where he blossomed into the No. 1 Under-18 player in the country. He has appeared on the covers of Rise and USTA Magazine. And while King never considered it, most teenagers of his caliber skip college and try to join the pro tour as soon as possible.

“Ever since I was good enough to even have tennis come into my mind, I wanted to play college tennis,” King said. “When I was 14, I got to see a big college tournament, and I was just struck by how exciting it was, especially the team aspect, since in juniors you’re playing for yourself all the time.

“In college, you have six other guys on the court at the same time. I’d much rather be a part of that than traveling around to a bunch of random, little countries, barely making anything.”

King’s college decision came down to Michigan, Ohio State and Illinois. Even though the latter two have dominated the Big Ten for years, King chose Michigan in order to become the piece de resistance of a recent run of strong recruiting classes for the Wolverines.

“I liked all three schools when I visited,” he said. “My dad’s a Michigan alum, so that was a small factor. But it came down to the fact that Michigan is the better school academically and also, I really like our coaching staff. On top of that, it’s nice to join a program that’s on the rise and not one that’s already been there, done that.”

King skipped kindergarten, so he only turned 18 this March near the end of the season. But playing opponents three or four years older didn’t seem to bother him; he alternated between No. 1 and No. 2 singles with Jason Jung and had an impressive 21-13 record.

However, there were some setbacks along the way. The most notable one was his loss to Pepperdine in Feb. In his first match at No. 1 singles, King dropped the first set before rallying to take a 5-4, 40-15 lead in the second. On set point, King hit an apparent ace, but his opponent made a questionable call. After an argument and accusations of cheating from the crowd, King lost his cool and dropped the set in a tiebreaker.

“That was definitely my biggest regret of the year,” King says now. “I should still have won that game. An important part of college tennis is experience. I wasn’t ready for that at the time, so I blew up and lost my cool, but I’ve come to realize that that sort of thing shouldn’t surprise you when it happens. If it happens again I’ll react differently, more calm and mellow like I usually am.”

Another disappointment was the team’s inability to get past Big Ten kingpins Ohio State and Illinois.