AUSTIN — Luis Diaz Barriga doesn’t have an exact count of how many tennis rackets he has broken in his day, just an estimate.

“Thirty,” the Texas senior says. “At least.”

So, he won’t even go so far as to guess the number he has thrown. Diaz Barriga really only specifically remembers one.

It was February 2007 in Tulsa, Okla., after Diaz Barriga wrapped up a three-set match to seal the team victory for Texas.

“I threw my racket and went over to hug my team,” Diaz Barriga recalled the player from Cordoba, Mexico. “It was emotional.”

See, this wasn’t just any match victory for Diaz Barriga — it represented a new beginning. Just four months prior, he walked off that very court and off the UT tennis team.

Diaz Barriga led a match 6-1, 4-1, but ended up losing in three sets. What followed was an emotional breakdown, a tirade directed at his coach and, for sure, a tossed racket or two.

After all that, Diaz Barriga knew he had enough. He said goodbye to his Longhorns, his scholarship and the sport he had played since he was a small boy.

“I guess you could say I burned out,” Diaz Barriga said.

His comeback takes another full-circle turn Friday, when the No. 7 Longhorns take on Florida in the NCAA round of 16 in — get this — Tulsa.

“Unbelievable,” Diaz Barriga said with a wry smile.

His meltdown in Tulsa in fall 2006 wasn’t an exaggeration. Diaz Barriga says that for as long as he has played tennis, his mental game has been his true weakness. He would pout, point fingers, yell at coaches.

But after turning away from the game, Diaz Barriga realized that he missed it, that he did still love it. And that he had been going about things all wrong.

“You always know what’s right and wrong,” he said. “I had to get to a point where I could do what’s best for me, and take things on my own shoulders.”

First, that meant winning the trust of his teammates. When he decided that he wanted to come back to the Longhorns, he visited teammate Milan Mihailovic and spoke of his desires.

“And I thought, ‘Well, this will be interesting,’.” Mihailovic said. “I didn’t want to see any of those weaknesses that he showed.”

UT coach Michael Center gave Diaz Barriga the chance to earn his spot back on the team, and that match in Tulsa in February 2007 only underscored the opportunity.

The team match was tied 3-3, with Diaz Barriga only left playing. Teammates started lining up, watching his match, which was on serve at 4-3 in the third. Then, Center walked over to him.

“I said, ‘Well, this is why you came back. This is what you want. Go for it,’.” Center recalled.

Diaz Barriga broke and won 6-4 in the third. Cue to the team embrace.

“That gave us confidence in him,” Mihailovic said.

And did what Diaz Barriga has done since the day he returned to the Longhorns. He has kept his temper in check and kept his rackets intact.

He has been winning, too. Diaz Barriga earned All-Big 12 honors for the past two seasons, and he is 28-5 in singles play this year, helping UT to the NCAA regional round for the third-straight season.

“We all know he’s capable of playing unbelievable tennis, but he really did an unbelievable thing coming back,” Mihailovic said.

nengland@express-news.net