My First Tennis Competition

Recently I was talking to some clients about my first Tennis Competition and they suggested that other people might benefit from hearing the story.

When I was younger you played full tennis as soon as you started playing matches and at 8 years old I played on a full court at a U10 junior competition at Rhyl Botanical gardens in North Wales. What is interesting to me now is that I cannot remember if I won or lost just that I hit some clean winners down the line and that the racket I had felt really heavy after a while. The whole experience is a bit of a blur! However, that was part of the magic of being 8 and doing something new and exciting - I was quickly moving on from one thing to another and had no time to linger on if I had won or lost.

The best thing about it from my perspective was that my family all came along and made a day of it. The first part of the day was playing the competition and then following that we went to the beach and had a picnic and a bit of a play in the sand. As Rhyl was equal distance between where we lived and where my grandparents lived, they came to meet us, and we had a family day out.

What I can take away from this is that by having the tournament be part of a bigger, family day out there was no dwelling on whether I had won or lost, how I could have played differently etc. as we were soon moving on to another fun activity. The day was not centred around me, which could have adding extra pressure to the experience – the family were there to support me for a couple of hours but then the focus would shift to my brother or my grandparents. My biggest advice to parents embarking on their first tournament experience with their child would be to keep the first tennis competition as a fun, small part of a bigger full day with other things going on afterwards that can quickly distract from the event. If you want to discuss the event this can come afterwards when the dust has settled, and some perspective gained.