Another gorgeous day in Bressuire and I have burnt my nose! Yes it is an indoor tourney but as I said before, practice and consolation matches are outside!
It's the coaches party tonight - well, more of a meal in the town - but I'm missing out as I didn't get back to the Ritz until 20:40 and up again at 06.30 but I wouldn't have gone anyway. We never leave the kids unsupervised but several of the foreign coaches do. Different cultures I guess, although there are 3 'caretakers' on the lower floor who check the corridors in the evenings. Wish they would check that the kids flush the loos - communal toilets = NIGHTMARE!
Enough of that. Good day at the tennis today, I watched one of our girls, who is particularly small for her age, and although very promising and has a phenomenal attitude, she often loses simply because she isn't physically strong enough yet. Anyway she won in straight sets which is great for her confidence and gave a very focussed and determined performance. She's a real wee jo pro.
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Then one of the boys came from a set and 5-3 down to win 6-4 in the 3rd in a very meaningful match against a much bigger French player. That's the thing in 12U events, the physical differences can be massive and the smaller kids need to learn how to play smart in order to win. To play smart they need variety, they need to be able to change pace, spin, direction, height and depth to disrupt the stronger player's rhythm - and they need to want to rise to the challenge!
But coaches - and parents - need to be able to look beyond the physical attributes. It is easy to think big is beautiful because big is winning at this stage but if big can't move or has poor attitude or dodgy technique or no fight/desire, their success is likely to be short term! They will get caught up and found out very soon!
I don't care if our kids win or lose so long as they have fought for every point and tried to work out what's happening during the match - on both sides of the court. You are really looking for the kids to see this type of trip as a huge learning opportunity and a chance to test themselves against the best from other countries. Those who think they are on holiday just because they are overseas, are just wasting your time and money.
Consequently we are always looking for ways to ensure our kids learn from the experience. Whether that's watching and talking through the video footage of their match, writing up their own analysis of the match, scouting the next opponent, planning the next matches tactics or answering the 10 daily quiz questions we set - we keep them busy and hopefully stimulated.
Today's funny story - I got a text from a former pupil who was competing in a $10k event in Argentina. She had won 3 rounds to qualify for the main draw and was drawn against a wild card whom she had never heard of. She went on the ITF website to check the players activity/biography and found nothing so she went to the referee to ask for any information on her opponent.
She discovered that she was from Chile, and born in 1971 as a man but had had a sex change :). Can you imagine how weird that must have been? Well it got worse because she found out that the match was to be covered on TV as this was only the second official match since 1977 to feature a transsexual.
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History in the making for sure. Well my girl (Nicola Slater) won 6-0, 6-0 in 25 minutes and made her way into the Guiness Book of Records as the fastest match in women's tour history. Replacing Steffi Grafs 36 minute previous record!
So I'm off to Thouars for a 9am match on Wednesday in the 11U girls event. Hoping my Swiss comedian/coach/dad will be there again to provide entertainment...have my camera just in case. He's not trying to be funny though, he's deadly serious.
If they ever make a Swiss TV version of Trophy Kids, he'll be on it! If you haven't seen that yet - get a copy from Channel 4. Phenomenal viewing!
More tommorow...