Disclaimer

This blog entry contains tennis, parenting, child psychology, modified balls, a compass draw, some mild heat exhaustion, and the sort of emotional volatility usually reserved for international diplomacy, penalty shoot-outs, and finding out the board game you wanted at UKGE has already sold out. No children were harmed in the making of this tournament report, although one child briefly behaved as if losing three consecutive points while 3–0 up represented a major constitutional crisis.

It has now been several days since our son’s last tennis tournament, which by the standards of this blog is practically historical archaeology. The reason for the “late” report is simple: UKGE started the following day, and once the Richardt household had relocated to Birmingham for four days of board games, demo tables, walking, dice, cardboard, more walking, questionable food decisions and NEC-based human endurance testing, there was simply no time to produce a tournament report.

We came back late yesterday from Birmingham, at which point the options were:

1. write a coherent tennis report,
2. unpack,
3. sleep,
4. stare silently at a wall while questioning whether feet are meant to feel like this.

Naturally, the wall won.

A full UKGE report will follow, assuming I can reassemble my frontal lobe and remember which games I played, which games I demoed, and which games I only stared at lovingly before realising the mortgage still exists.

But now, to tennis.

The U10 Experiment

My wife entered our son into his first U10 tournament a while ago. Half term sounded as good a time as any, largely because the alternative was leaving a highly competitive small child at home with surplus energy and no structured outlet, which is less “parenting” and more “risk management”.

The tournament was in Bridgwater, which immediately made the logistics more attractive. No heroic expedition across three counties. No leaving the house at a time usually associated with fishing trawlers and hospital shift workers. Just Bridgwater. Civilised. Almost suspiciously so.

It was also a Grade 5 U10 event, which seemed like a sensible entry point. Not too brutal, not too soft, and just about right for seeing how he would cope with the next stage of the junior tennis ladder: bigger court, different ball, bigger children, and correspondingly bigger emotional consequences.

For those not fully fluent in the taxonomy of junior tennis — and frankly, why would you be unless you have accidentally become the unpaid logistics department for a small athlete — the transition from U9 to U10 is not just a birthday with a racket attached.

At U9, children commonly play with orange balls on a smaller court. The orange ball is slower, lower bouncing, and gives children more time to develop technique, rallying, movement and tactical awareness without the ball behaving like it has urgent business elsewhere. The court is also smaller, meaning the child is not required to cover an area that, to them, must feel roughly the size of Wimbledon Centre Court combined with a municipal car park.

At U10, things move towards green ball tennis. The green ball is closer to a standard yellow ball. It is still slightly slower and more forgiving than the adult ball, but it travels faster and bounces higher than the orange ball. Crucially, it is played on the full-sized court. This means the rallies stretch out, the serves matter more, recovery positions become important, and footwork suddenly stops being a theoretical concept.

In short, U9 tennis is “develop your game”.

U10 tennis is “develop your game, but now the court has doubled and everyone appears to be taller than you.”

Currently, our son still gets coached with orange balls, and personally I think that is absolutely fine. The orange ball remains excellent for technique development. It allows children to shape shots, practise timing, build patterns, and actually learn tennis rather than simply survive it. When we play with him, however, we use green balls because he needs to get used to them. There is only so much transition theory one can discuss before the child needs to stand on a full court and discover that the baseline is now in a different postcode.

Like last year, we decided that he should “play up” — meaning he competes in an age group above his own — to gain experience. This worked reasonably well last year, so in the grand tradition of evidence-based parenting, we decided to repeat the intervention and see whether the data replicated.

In our minds, the move from U9 to U10 might not be quite as brutal as the previous transition from U8 to U9. But as ever, our son would be the judge, jury, competitor, emotional narrator and post-match tribunal.

Expectations: Low, Realistic, and Therefore Ignored

The day of the tournament arrived. My wife and I had modest expectations, mainly because this was his first U10 event and we genuinely did not know how he would handle it.

Our son, by contrast, had the usual expectation: total victory.

This is because he is an optimist, a strong-minded child, and someone who treats even training as if ranking points, prize money and national honour are on the line. As previously reported on this website, there is no such thing as “just a knock”. There is only competition, lightly disguised as hitting.

There were seven players entered, and the format was a seven-player compass draw with one FAST4 set per match.

A compass draw sounds more complicated than it is. Essentially, it is a way of structuring a tournament so players continue to get matches rather than losing once and immediately being released back into the wild. Winners move one way through the draw, players who lose move into placing matches, and by the end everyone has usually had a meaningful amount of tennis and at least one parent has lost track of where their child now sits in the geometry.

FAST4 is exactly what it says on the tin: tennis, but accelerated. First to four games wins the set. At deuce, there is no advantage scoring — it goes to a sudden death point. This is excellent for keeping tournaments moving and terrible if your child’s emotional regulation is calibrated to “every point is a referendum on my future”.

His quarter-final opponent was Hamza Willemse.

If I remember correctly, they played each other last year in Yeovil, where our son lost a close match 8–10. Hamza is a year older, and when our son saw him, he immediately remembered the previous encounter.

“I played him before. I lost.”

I explained that this was last year and that this was a new slate. A fresh start. A clean page. A new developmental context.

This is the sort of thing parents say when they have no idea what will happen but want to sound calm.

Quarter-Final: Hamza Willemse

After the warm-up, our son and Hamza were first up.

Our son won the first point of the set, which seemed a good start. At this point, with the temperature already reaching approximately 30 degrees Celsius at 9am — because apparently Bridgwater had been temporarily relocated to the surface of Mercury — I retreated into the shade and took a call from David, a school friend I talk and video chat with quite frequently.

While talking to David, I kept half an eye on the court.

This is the modern sporting parent: one eye on the child, one ear on the phone, one internal monologue calculating whether sunscreen has been applied sufficiently, and one foot already aware that UKGE walking mileage begins the next morning.

Then I noticed something.

Our son was 2–1 up.

Then he held serve.

3–1.

Then he broke Hamza’s serve.

4–1.

Match.

Just like that, his first U10 match was a win. In the blistering heat, on the bigger court, with the green ball, against a player he had previously lost to and who was a year older.

Unexpected? Yes.

Deserved? Also yes.

Slightly inconvenient for parental expectations that had been carefully set at “let’s just gain experience”? Absolutely.

Our son was elated. I wrapped up the call with David, but not before David had the chance to congratulate him. This was followed by high-fives, smiles, and the brief but beautiful period in junior sport where everyone is happy, hydrated and no one is questioning the moral structure of the universe.

Naturally, this could not last.

Semi-Final: Ava Nichols

His semi-final opponent was Ava Nichols, a strong player from Avon who had a bye in the first round.

She was a year older than our son and approximately a head taller. To be fair, most children he plays are currently taller than him, so this is less an observation and more a recurring theme. His junior tennis career, at this stage, often resembles a nature documentary in which the smaller animal has good footwork but unresolved feelings about unforced errors.

I am not entirely sure what happens in our son’s mind when he plays girls. I suspect, subconsciously, he sometimes assumes they will be easier to beat.

This is, of course, nonsense.

And tennis has a beautifully efficient way of correcting nonsense.

Ava was steady, composed and effective. Her forehand was good, her serve was reliable, and she got the ball back over the net with the sort of calm consistency that tends to dismantle players who are waiting for the match to become easier. Instead of imposing his own game, our son became reactive. He was pushed around by her style of play and never quite settled into the proactive tennis he can produce when he is confident.

She won 4–2.

It was, interestingly, the closest loss any player in the tournament. That is worth noting, although at the time our son did not appear in the correct cognitive state to appreciate statistical nuance.

The crying began.

Then the wailing began.

There is crying, and then there is post-match junior tennis wailing, which has a very specific acoustic quality. It sits somewhere between operatic tragedy and someone being told the Wi-Fi password is unavailable.

My wife dealt with it.

This was probably for the best.

My approach in these situations is not always the preferred one when my wife is present. I do give my five pence worth of advice, but this advice is not always received in the constructive spirit in which it is allegedly intended. I am therefore often placed in the parental equivalent of the dog house: present, aware, but strategically silenced.

So I left my wife to manage the emotional debrief and waited until after his next and final match before speaking properly to him.

This may be called “good parenting”.

It may also be called “self-preservation”.

Third/Fourth Place Match: Jesse Frost

His final match was for third and fourth place against Jesse Frost, a player from Gloucestershire.

Jesse was, of course, born in 2016 and roughly a head taller. At this point, I am considering whether tournament organisers should include height categories, although I suspect this suggestion may not survive formal consultation.

Our son started brilliantly.

He raced into a 3–0 lead.

At this point, the match should have been relatively comfortable. Not finished, because tennis has a habit of punishing anyone who thinks they are safe, but certainly promising.

Then something quite bizarre happened.

My wife actually recorded this part on her phone because our seats were elevated and provided a good view of the court. Our son was 40–0 up and lost three points in a row.

And then he started crying.

On court.

While 3–0 up.

At deuce.

This was not a small wobble. This was the full emotional works. The sort of moment where, from a parental point of view, you are watching and thinking, “You are nearly winning. This is not traditionally the moment for despair.”

At deuce in FAST4, it becomes sudden death. One point. Winner takes the game.

He won the point.

He won the game.

He won the match.

He finished third.

Which makes the emotional collapse at 40–0 up even more fascinating, in the way that volcanoes, black holes and NHS parking systems are fascinating. One can observe them. One can try to understand them. But one should not assume full control is possible.

He has done this before at another tournament. I remember watching him get upset after losing a couple of points, only to be told by the umpire that he was actually ahead and nearly winning.

This, apparently, did not improve the emotional situation.

For him, the scoreboard is not always the issue.

The issue is losing points.

Any points.

Points that, in his mind, should have been won because he expects a level of perfection that no adult professional consistently achieves, never mind a child playing his first U10 tournament in tropical Bridgwater.

The Mental Side: Parenting from the Edge of the Court

From a parental point of view, we are slightly at our wits’ end with the crying and wailing, both on and off court.

The important thing is this: we are not putting pressure on him.

We do not expect him to win every match. We do not tell him he must beat anyone. We do not frame tournaments as success or failure. We enter him because he enjoys competing, because match play is important, and because learning to lose is part of becoming not only a better player, but a functioning human being.

All the pressure comes from him.

He wants to win every match. He wants to win every point. He wants to hit the right shot at the right time with the right outcome and ideally no unnecessary inconvenience from the opponent.

Unfortunately, opponents continue to behave in a deeply unsporting manner by trying to win as well.

There are probably a few things we can try.

First, we can shift the focus away from outcome goals. Instead of “Did you win?”, the post-match questions need to be more process-based. Did you move your feet? Did you recover after shots? Did you try to build points? Did you serve with intent? Did you stay brave when the rally got tight? Did you problem-solve?

Second, we can create one or two match targets that have nothing to do with the score. For example: after every point, turn around, reset the strings, take one breath, and walk back to position. That sounds simple. It is not. For a child who feels every lost point personally, the reset routine becomes the emotional handbrake.

Third, we may need to agree in advance what happens when the tears start. Not as a punishment, but as a plan. Something like: “You are allowed to feel upset, but during the match you must keep playing, breathe, and use your reset. We will talk afterwards.” The key is to separate emotion from behaviour. Feeling disappointed is acceptable. Wailing through the match while 3–0 up is less ideal, unless we are trying to qualify for theatre school.

Fourth, we can normalise losing points. Even elite players lose points. In fact, tennis is structurally designed so that players lose points constantly and still win matches. A player can lose plenty of points and still win the set. This is a deeply irritating truth for a perfectionist child but a necessary one.

Fifth, we can avoid too much technical commentary immediately after a loss. This is where I sometimes go wrong. A child in meltdown does not need a tactical lecture on court positioning, shot selection and emotional resilience. They need water, shade, a quiet moment, and perhaps a parent who has temporarily remembered that timing is a skill.

Sixth, we can praise recovery more than victory. The most important question is not whether he cried. The question is whether he continued. Did he restart? Did he compete again? Did he find a way through? In the third-place match, despite crying, he still won the sudden death point and finished the job. That matters.

Finally, we may need to accept that some of this is developmental. He is competitive, intense and strong-minded. These are not bad traits. In fact, they are probably part of why he plays well. The challenge is not to remove that fire, but to teach him how to hold it without setting the curtains alight.

This is easy to write in a blog.

It is harder when your child is crying on court while leading 3–0 and you are sitting there in 30-degree heat wondering whether “regulated emotional development” can be purchased from Tennis Warehouse.

Third Place, First Attempt

Despite the drama, the heat, the wailing, the dog-house parenting dynamics and the sudden death existentialism, the outcome was fantastic.

Our son finished third in his first ever U10 tournament.

Third.

On a full-sized court.

With green balls.

Against older, taller players.

In serious heat.

After winning his first match, losing narrowly to the eventual level of the tournament, and then recovering enough to win the third-place match.

That is not just good. That is genuinely impressive.

By the end, he was happy. The tears had evaporated, helped no doubt by the Bridgwater climate, and he was already looking forward to Birmingham the following day for four days at the UK Games Expo.

Because apparently the correct recovery protocol after a first U10 tennis tournament is not rest, reflection and hydration.

It is the NEC.

Four days of board games.

And more walking than any paediatric physiotherapist would officially recommend.

Still, third place in his first U10 event is a brilliant start. The bigger court did not swallow him. The green ball did not expose him. The older players did not overwhelm him. The emotional regulation remains, shall we say, a work in progress.

But then again, so is parenting.

And unlike FAST4, there is no sudden death point.

Sadly.