With senior Mazen Osama’s collegiate tennis career winding down, he’s accumulated a plethora of achievements that Alabama tennis fans will remember long after he graduates. He was a part of a doubles team that achieved the highest ranking of any doubles pair in Alabama history during his freshman year and he finished with the highest ranking of any singles player in Alabama history with a No. 8 ranking last season to name just a few of those accomplishment.

When his time in an Alabama uniform is over, Osama will go down as one of the most successful players in program history.

But with three home matches left, and the SEC and NCAA championships still ahead, Osama still has time to add to his storied career.

“It has been challenging for him because he doesn’t know how to face the end,” head coach George Husack said. “There have been moments where he’s played like his last and other times where he’s unsure of how to attack things. At the end of the day, he has one shot of playing college tennis, and this is his final shot. He has to let it all loose at the end of the stretch.”

Before Osama arrived at the University over four years ago, the Cairo, Egypt, native played on the professional tour. During that time, he participated in the 2013 French Open, Australian Open, and Wimbledon Junior Championships. But unlike college tennis, professionals, including Juniors like Osama, have no financial support for the travel, coaching and tournament expenses.

Unable to financially support his professional career, Osama decided to pursue a collegiate tennis career. His professional coach at the time played at Alabama in the 1980s and was the one who pitched the idea of attending Alabama to Osama.

“I felt like it was going to be a great fit,” Osama said. “I knew it was really going to improve my physical game because we play a lot of matches here.”

Even though there was a learning curve to adjust to the collegiate style of play, Osama has made a significant impact from the moment he arrived at Alabama. In his freshman season, he was the only freshman in the SEC to play No. 1 singles and eventually made the cut for the 64-player field of the NCAA Singles Championships, which was the first time for an Alabama player to do so since 1997.

His sophomore and junior season were quite successful as well. He was named first team All-SEC and the ITA Southern Regional Player to watch as a sophomore. In his junior season, he continued his dominance on the national level by becoming the first Alabama player to advance to the Round of 16 and then eventually the quarterfinals of the NCAA Singles Championships.

“Coming off a professional tour and playing for himself, he has learned the importance of the team and the guys around him and he embraced the university for what it is,” Husack said of Osama’s progression while at Alabama. “His ability is very high, but if you can’t embrace the things around you, you cannot reach the same highs as you would on the professional tour.”

But Osama’s senior season has not been without hardships. To start the season, he beat his first four nationally ranked opponents, but since he has lost to his last five nationally ranked opponents, including losing in four of the past five overall matches.

Osama said, “Personally, I need to work really hard [in practice] because I have been struggling a little bit in the last couple matches. There are things I need to improve on for sure.”

The road does not get easier for Osama and the Crimson Tide as he is projected to play the 6th-, 14th- and 60th-ranked players in the country in his final three home matches of his career at Alabama. Despite the tough stretch ahead, Husack understands the difficulty seniors face in their final season.

“It’s not about winning or losing these matches,” Husack said. “He now has six weeks left in this environment and in those six weeks, so how is he going to handle it himself and face the challenge, give forth the effort to impact the team and finally cement your legacy, because we won’t remember the results but the effort and pride that you have.”