This is an interesting article about life on tour

Blog - Oct 2010

I hope everyone has had a great month of September and those in the tennis world have had a well deserved break before starting up their training/tournament load again.

All is fantastic at SotoTennis - the boys went up to Cordoba on Friday to sign in for the qualifying of a Futures there. It was a really valuable weekend for them all, particularly Dave Hodgetts. At 16 years old, it was his first senior professional tournament, and he won two matches to make it through to the last round of qualifying, beating two experienced players.

Unfortunately though, one of our boys did not get in. Six spaces were left for the taking, with seven players having signed in. The names were drawn from a hat, and Rob Carter’s was the only one not picked out. He was naturally disappointed, but it’s another great `character builder` for these guys and all part of the `pro tennis players` life. I spoke to him on the phone and tried to pass on some of my experience, wow I am getting old! I told him about a good friend of mine Lee Childs, who is a former top 5 player in Great Britain and Davis Cup player. Lee left home early morning Boxing Day one year to travel to Qatar for the season opening tournament. In tennis we `sign in` at events to prove we are there as tournaments are all over the world. He ended up being one ranking place from getting in the tournament, so it would seem, wasted £2,000 on flights and hotels. He practiced there all week though then flew to Sydney for the next event on the calendar, but again he was 1 or 2 ranking places from getting in. So, another £2000 down the drain. Onto Brisbane next, where the same happened, and then again at the big event, the Australian Open!  So four weeks, £8,000, thousands of air miles and he never played a match! BUT, Lee gained 4 weeks of experience at big events, hitting and socialising with top 100 players in the world, and while he didn’t play, he learned how tournaments like this ‘work’, and settled into that environment.  He went on to have a fantastic 6 months including winning a main draw match at Wimbledon! A great example of a true professional, and while there are not many sports where this would happen, he didn’t mope around feeling sorry for himself,  but came away having still gained valuable experience. I am confident my guys will react the same in this, and similar situations in the future.

All else is good here in Sotogrande! We are coming to the end of a 4-5 week hard training block where the guys fitness levels have soared and their games have developed nicely. They will get to put all their hard work to the test next week when they travel to tournaments in Barcelona, Libya, and Japan.  No, I wont be at all of them unfortunately – the ITF at Barcelona it is for me, with Josh, James, and Rob. Matt Kirby from Cambridge is also joining our travelling team which is great. I hope I have some good news next week and I’ll be able to write about what fantastic attitudes our players showed and that they did everything they could both on and off court, within their control. That is all we can ask…

Please feel free to e mail any topics you want us at STA to talk about in future…

Play to Win