Disclaimer

No junior tennis players, parents, coaches, caffeinated spectators or innocent tennis balls were harmed in the writing of this blog. Any opinions expressed are, as ever, my own, mildly sleep-deprived, slightly over-analytical and written with the sort of deadpan tone that probably needs its own safeguarding policy. As usual, this is a blog about family life, sport, sideline chaos and the ongoing attempt to raise a child who can both compete hard and not launch a tennis ball across court like a man settling an old grudge.

This morning’s tennis adventure took us, with almost suspicious predictability, to Blackbrook. For our son, Blackbrook has become the default setting for competitive disappointment, cautious optimism and the occasional decent forehand.

He had the option of playing his first U10 tournament yesterday, but in a decision that was probably the most sensible made by anyone in this household all weekend, he chose today’s U9 Grade 5 instead so he could still attend board game day at the library.

Frankly, I respect that. Why rush into bigger courts and bigger children when cardboard and meeples are available?

He went into the tournament seeded third, which sounded encouraging on paper and, for a short while, also in real life.

With 11 players entered, that meant he received a bye in round one and progressed straight to the quarter-final. A luxurious start, really. No need to earn your place the hard way when the draw has already decided you are worthy of a later collapse.

His quarter-final opponent was Joel Fitzpatrick, who had also come through to that stage without having to do much more than turn up and warm up.

This was not unfamiliar territory. Our son had already played Joel in the County Cup when Somerset faced Devon, so there was at least some history there. The format was best of three tie-break sets to seven, which suits our son in theory because he is often a slow starter. The problem today was that he was not just a slow starter. He was barely a starter at all.

We arrived around 8.30am, did the usual warm-up routine, and watched the steady procession of players and parents filing in and signing on.

Among the familiar faces were Zach and Finn from the wider Somerset County team. Zach, seeded second, was also waiting in the quarter-finals while his opponent was decided in one of the opening matches. With four courts available, the tournament moved quickly: two first-round matches and two quarter-finals began at once, including our son’s.

And now, with all due respect to sporting narrative and suspense, there is no point dressing this up. He was poor. Very poor.

Not poor in the noble, “he fought bravely but came up just short” sense. Poor in the much less marketable sense of not really showing up with any meaningful tennis and then reacting badly when things did not go his way. He fell behind, got frustrated and cried.

There was ball-kicking.

There was tossing the ball back to the opponent in a manner that could best be described as aggressively unhelpful.

There was enough general unhappiness to make it feel less like a tennis match and more like a very small but emotionally volatile shareholder revolt.

It was bad enough that I ended up shouting from the stands for him to stop. I do not particularly enjoy being That Parent. Nobody arrives at a junior tennis event hoping to debut in the role of frustrated minor character from a sports documentary. But his behaviour was heading into code violation territory, and quite apart from the tennis, that was the issue. He lost in two sets and, on the evidence of both his tennis and his conduct, deserved to although his tennis wasn’t too bad.

Afterwards, I took him away from everyone else and had some very firm words with him, with my voice raised more than I would have liked. Not because he lost. Losing in junior sport is normal, frequent and, frankly, character-building in a way that endless winning never is. But the behaviour was unacceptable. There is a difference between being upset and behaving badly, and today he crossed it.

Meanwhile, in text correspondence with my wife, who was on duty at work, I attempted to explain the match, the behaviour and the general catastrophe. Somehow, in the time-honoured tradition of marital diplomacy, my behaviour then became part of the problem. So that was useful. Nothing quite sharpens the mood like trying to report from the front line only to discover you are now also under review yourself. Eyes rolled, internally and externally.

The defeat dropped him into the consolation side of the draw, where he then had the pleasure of waiting about 45 minutes before discovering who his next opponent would be.

That turned out to be Rupert from Devon. I watched this match in the slightly detached state of a man who has already emotionally completed the day and is now simply present for administrative reasons.

I did not keep score properly, but I did notice him lose the first set, mainly because the set ended with him losing the point. That tends to be the giveaway. To his credit, he then recovered and won the next two sets (winning 8-6 in the third set), which at least suggested that some tennis had finally entered the building.

That put him into the 5th-place play-off against Finn, his Somerset team-mate. From what I saw, he won that in two sets. So after three matches and roughly three hours, we were done by around 11.30am, with our son finishing 5th.

Again.

There is, in fairness, a sort of bleak consistency to that.

The final was between Millard Lai and Zach, which was also the final the draw had rather politely hinted at from the start, with the number one and number two seeds placed at opposite ends. Occasionally junior tennis delivers chaos. Today it mostly delivered administrative efficiency.

So how should one assess the morning? That depends which version of me you ask.

The cynic in me felt it was a morning wasted. A seeded player with a bye, one poor quarter-final, two consolation wins, and a finish that looked respectable enough on paper but did not feel especially meaningful in context.

The dad in me was still annoyed, not by the result, but by the behaviour.

Our son, meanwhile, was perfectly happy because he had finished 5th, just as he had in his last tournament. I did not quite have the energy to explain that the last event in Wellington was a Grade 4 and this one was a Grade 5, and that these things are not entirely interchangeable.

Sometimes parenting is knowing when not to deploy the full statistical analysis.

What was perhaps most curious was that he seemed genuinely content with finishing 5th. Previously, that would not have pleased him at all. Maybe that is maturity. Maybe it is lowered expectations. Maybe it is simply the post-match emotional relief of no longer being on court. I am not yet sure.

What I am sure of is this: progress currently feels slow. Painfully slow. Not just in tennis terms, but in the emotional side of competition too. The forehands and backhands will come and go, but how he behaves when he is losing matters far more than whether he sneaks into a semi-final of a Grade 5 at Blackbrook.

That is the part worth fixing.

Also, and this is a completely separate but not unrelated point, I may now think twice before attending every tournament myself. There comes a time in every family sporting journey when one parent begins to suspect the other should be given a full and immersive understanding of the experience.

Not the edited highlights.

Not the cheerful summary.

The full version.

The early arrival, the warm-up, the emotional swings, the score confusion, the tactical despair, the internal monologue, the minor behavioural summit meeting afterwards. My wife may soon get that opportunity.

I am sure she will be thrilled.