Disclaimer
As always, this is a personal blog about family life, junior sport and the increasingly questionable decisions that lead otherwise sensible adults to spend seven hours beside a tennis court in Burnham-on-Sea. Any observations about players, coaches, officials or tournaments are entirely personal, based on what I saw on the day, and certainly not an attempt at professional tennis analysis. The children mentioned are all developing athletes doing something considerably more difficult than the adults watching from the sidelines. Results will be forgotten; hopefully the enjoyment, resilience and occasional ace will remain.
After the “disaster” of Sunday’s U9 competition, Monday was designated a rest day.
And by “rest day”, I obviously mean the sort of rest day elite athletes have between major competitions.
Except our athlete is eight, lives in Somerset and probably spent at least part of it doing something entirely unrelated to recovery.
Nevertheless, no tennis.
Because on Tuesday morning, it was time to go again.
This time it was the Somerset County Championships U10 Singles, which came with significantly lower expectations from the parental support team.
That sounds slightly harsh, but there was some logic behind it.
Our son is still fundamentally an U9 player who has only recently started dipping his toes into the U10 circuit. Most of that experimentation has taken place at Grade 5 tournaments, where the objective has largely been to find out what happens when you put him on a bigger court, give the opposition another year of physical development and see whether he survives.
So far, broadly speaking, he has.
He has also played the occasional Grade 3 tournament, where there have been some very encouraging individual matches but where the overall standard remains, quite understandably, a little steep at the moment.
Which is fine.
You don’t enter the next age category because you expect immediate world domination.
Well.
Apparently we don’t.
I cannot speak for every tennis parent.
The M5: Somerset’s Other Endurance Event
The tournament started at 9am in Burnham-on-Sea, meaning we left Taunton at around 7.45am.
This was partly because we wanted to arrive early enough for a proper warm-up.
But mainly because between Junctions 24 and 22 the M5 occasionally enters a separate dimension where traffic simply stops moving.
There doesn’t necessarily have to be an accident.
Or roadworks.
Or livestock.
Or anything remotely identifiable.
Sometimes the M5 just decides that everybody should spend twenty minutes contemplating their life choices somewhere near Bridgwater.
Therefore, an early departure seemed sensible.
We arrived at The Avenue at around 8.20am and the place was already very much alive.
Players were arriving, parents were carrying enormous tennis bags and organisers were presumably already wondering why they had chosen a hobby that involved coordinating twelve children, numerous courts and several hundred line calls before lunchtime.
Our son signed in and we headed towards one of the free courts.
And then we did something rather revolutionary.
We warmed up.
I know.
Radical stuff.
Stretching first, followed by some gentle hitting, then rallies and finally some serves.
Warming up seems one of those things everyone involved in sport agrees is important but which children frequently interpret as:
“Can I just smash the ball as hard as possible immediately?”
No.
Not yet.
The serving was particularly important because this remains one of the biggest differences between merely surviving at U10 level and actually competing.
Getting the ball somewhere vaguely inside the service box is one thing.
Serving with intent is another.
After twenty minutes or so, we packed up and waited for the tournament to begin.
Welcome to the Deep End
The field consisted of twelve players in a sixteen-player compass draw.
And this wasn’t exactly a gentle introduction to U10 tennis.
The draw contained some of the strongest juniors Somerset currently has at this age, including several players who, although technically still U9 themselves, are already seasoned travellers around the U10 tournament circuit.
At the top of the draw was Finn Saunders, a Millfield player and one of the leading U10 juniors.
His tennis journey is already fairly well documented on Instagram, which occasionally makes me wonder whether I should create something similar for our son.
A little tennis account.
Some photos.
Tournament updates.
Perhaps links to this blog.
Which would also provide an extremely efficient method for Olga finally discovering that this blog exists.
Frankly, after all these years, perhaps she deserves to know.
Or perhaps not.
We shall revisit this strategic communication decision at another time.
The top four seeds received byes into the quarter-finals, while everybody else began in the opening round.
The format was fairly unforgiving:
Two Fast4 sets.
At 3–3, a seven-point tiebreak.
If the sets were level at 1–1, a ten-point championship tiebreak decided the match.
In other words, matches could become quite long.
For ten-year-olds.
Or, in several cases, eight- and nine-year-olds.
Stamina would matter.
Mental concentration would matter.
And, judging by what followed, parental blood pressure would also matter.
Match One: Oliver
Our son’s first opponent was Oliver Plumb.
I had never met Oliver before, although Eddie had. Oliver trains at Blackbrook and, although he is a 2016-born player, physically there wasn’t a huge amount between them.
The match started.
And something had apparently happened to Eddie between Sunday afternoon and Tuesday morning.
I don’t know what.
There had been no great revelation during Monday.
No mysterious tennis guru had visited the house.
No overnight biomechanical intervention.
And even during the warm-up there hadn’t been anything particularly dramatic.
But once the match started, he played some genuinely excellent tennis.
Particularly on serve.
This wasn’t the cautious:
“Please go over the net and then I’ll see what happens.”
serve.
This was an actual serve.
Strong first delivery.
Purpose.
Placement.
And, possibly more importantly, when the first serve missed he had a second serve he trusted.
Not just a survival serve either.
A proper second serve.
For anyone who has watched junior tennis, this is quite a substantial development.
Because once a child realises that missing the first serve does not automatically mean the next ball needs to be pushed gently towards the service box like a fragile parcel, an entirely different game becomes possible.
Meanwhile, most of the matches around them finished.
Eddie and Oliver had apparently decided they were playing best-of-five at Roland-Garros.
The first set reached 3–3.
Tiebreak.
The tiebreak was extremely close but Oliver eventually edged it 7–5.
One set down.
And approximately 35 minutes had already disappeared.
There was still, potentially, another two sets’ worth of tennis to play.
The second set followed a remarkably similar pattern.
Long rallies.
Competitive games.
Very little between them.
At 2–3, however, Eddie had a short lapse.
A couple of loose points and then a double fault left him facing 15–40.
Two match points.
He fought back.
30–40.
Then 40–40.
Which in Fast4 means the next point decides the game.
And therefore the match.
Oliver won it.
3–4(5), 2–4.
Over seventy minutes on court.
For one first-round junior match.
Eddie naturally wasn’t happy.
He had lost.
Children generally don’t emerge from seventy minutes of competitive tennis delighted because somebody tells them their forehand technique showed excellent developmental progression.
But this was one of those occasions where the scoreline genuinely wasn’t the most important thing.
He had played his heart out.
His serving was probably the best I had seen from him in competition.
He competed against an older player at a level which, only a few months ago, would have looked significantly beyond him.
And he had left absolutely nothing in the tank.
You cannot really ask for more.
Sometimes progress arrives disguised as a defeat.
Which is annoyingly philosophical when you’re eight and have just lost a tennis match.
Nevertheless, progress it was.
The Losers’ Draw – well, that’s what I call it
The beauty of the compass draw is that losing doesn’t mean you can simply pack the bag, buy an ice cream and disappear back down the M5.
No.
There is always more tennis.
Next opponent:
Spencer.
We know Spencer well.
He used to train with Eddie before moving fully into the U10 group last year.
He is a 2016-born player and now stands more than a head taller than Eddie.
Strong serve.
Good technique.
And enough previous history between the two players to ensure that whoever was officiating might want to remain nearby.
Because there is another feature of Eddie-versus-Spencer matches.
Line calls.
Both have opinions.
Strong ones.
Usually about each other’s.
This was unlikely to become relevant.
Obviously.
The match started.
And it didn’t take particularly long before a racket was raised and either Pippa or Parul had to walk onto court to establish diplomatic relations.
I still don’t entirely know what the dispute was about.
Neither, afterwards, did Eddie.
Which is often the sign of a truly important disagreement.
Anyway.
Tennis resumed.
And once again we entered marathon territory.
Spencer won the first set 4–2.
Eddie was visibly frustrated.
Sunday’s version of Eddie might have allowed that frustration to swallow the second set.
Tuesday’s version didn’t.
He reset.
Started playing again.
And won the second set 4–1.
One set each.
They had now been on court for more than an hour.
Naturally, the tournament format required a ten-point championship tiebreak.
Because apparently seventy minutes wasn’t enough.
I Can No Longer Watch This
At this point my contribution to the match became increasingly limited.
Not because I had anything else to do.
I simply couldn’t watch continuously.
Junior tennis produces a strange form of parental behaviour where you drive forty miles specifically to watch your child play tennis, then spend large sections of the match deliberately looking in another direction.
Spencer’s mum was doing much the same.
Every now and then we would cautiously look back.
Still playing.
Look away again.
Check scoreboard.
Regret checking scoreboard.
Repeat.
The deciding tiebreak became increasingly tense.
During one rally, Eddie called a ball out.
Two boys watching from the side immediately shouted that it had been in.
This resulted in Parul stepping across and moving the spectators away from the action while the on-court official asked Eddie whether he was certain about the call.
He pointed towards where he believed the ball had landed.
Call stood.
Eddie’s point.
Quite right too.
Whether a call is correct or incorrect, having other children effectively officiating from outside the court is probably not a sustainable governance model.
Eventually Eddie found himself 5–8 down.
Not ideal.
Particularly against a player with Spencer’s serve.
But then something happened.
A couple of strong service points.
Including an ace.
Yes.
An ace.
At exactly the right moment.
Then Eddie managed to get an excellent return onto one of Spencer’s big serves.
Suddenly:
8–8.
Spencer won the next point.
8–9.
Match point.
At this stage I believe I was studying one of the neighbouring courts very carefully.
Eddie served.
Good serve.
Spencer couldn’t return it.
9–9.
Still alive.
Another Eddie serve.
A short rally.
Ball lands extremely close to the line.
Spencer calls it out.
Pippa and Parul were positioned behind that side of the court and overruled the call.
Ball had clipped the line.
10–9 Eddie.
Understandably, Spencer looked frustrated.
He served the next point.
Another rally developed.
And then almost exactly the same thing happened again.
Spencer called another close ball out.
Again he was overruled.
Ball in.
Match over.
11–9.
A slightly strange ending to what had been a brilliant match from both boys.
Nobody particularly wants a long match decided by two overrules.
But equally that is precisely why officials are there.
Junior players are still learning judgement, line calling, emotional control and match management alongside forehands and serves.
Eddie had won.
After roughly 75 minutes.
Which meant that across his opening two matches he had now spent around two and a half hours on court.
Two matches.
Two and a half hours.
At eight years old.
Completely normal Tuesday morning.
And Then the Petrol Light Came On – or running on fumes
There was still one match left.
The play-off for ninth place.
His opponent was Theo Gray, who happened to be celebrating his tenth birthday alongside his twin brother Sam.
Happy birthday.
Here is an exhausted eight-year-old.
Unfortunately for Eddie, Theo still had considerably more functioning tennis player left in him.
The match lasted about twenty minutes.
0–4, 0–4.
And that was that.
Normally, a 0–4, 0–4 defeat looks fairly brutal.
But this one didn’t really tell you much about the day.
The real story had happened in the previous two matches.
Eddie had spent two and a half hours grinding through competitive Fast4 tennis before entering his final match against an older player.
Eventually biology tends to win.
There was simply nothing left.
The tank wasn’t low.
The tank had been removed from the vehicle.
Overall finish:
10th place.
And I thought that was excellent.
Seven Hours of Junior Tennis Provides Time for Observation
We were at Burnham for roughly seven hours.
Seven.
Hours.
Watching junior tennis.
This gives you a lot of time to notice things.
Some technical.
Some tactical.
Some behavioural.
And some which make you wonder whether professional tennis has perhaps influenced junior tennis rather more than we realise.
There was a surprising amount of emotional commentary after lost points.
Rackets raised.
Hands thrown towards the sky.
Long conversations with oneself.
Sometimes after losing a point while comfortably ahead.
I find that fascinating.
Frustration is obviously part of competitive sport, particularly when you’re young and learning to regulate emotions under pressure.
But there is a difference between competitiveness and allowing every lost point to become a Shakespearean tragedy.
The best players aren’t necessarily the ones who never become frustrated.
They’re often the ones who recover fastest.
Then there is the occasional bit of swagger.
Again, perhaps understandable.
Children know rankings.
They know seeds.
They know who beats whom.
Parents certainly know.
Probably considerably more than they admit.
But arrogance is one characteristic I hope Eddie never develops.
Confidence?
Absolutely.
Belief that you can beat the person on the other side of the net?
Essential.
Competitiveness?
Definitely.
But there is a fairly important difference between believing you are good and needing everybody else to know you believe you are good.
Then there was the grunting.
A lot of grunting.
Quite impressive grunting in some cases.
Some nine- and ten-year-olds apparently produce more noise hitting a forehand than I make getting out of a low chair after a twelve-hour hospital shift.
I presume different coaches have different opinions about this.
Some may actively encourage vocal exhalation.
Others perhaps don’t.
I’m certainly not qualified to enter the biomechanics of competitive grunting.
I merely observed that Burnham occasionally sounded like Court Philippe-Chatrier during a five-set quarter-final.
Except everybody still needed an adult to drive them home afterwards.
Something Changed
But the most important observation from Tuesday was our son’s tennis.
Something moved forward.
Not just technically.
Physically, he survived two extremely long matches.
Mentally, he recovered after losing the first set against Spencer.
He dealt with match points.
He served under pressure.
He came back from 5–8 in a deciding tiebreak.
At 8–9 he produced a serve good enough that Spencer couldn’t get the ball back.
Those are useful experiences.
Probably more useful than winning an easy match 4–0, 4–0.
The dangerous part, of course, is that we have been here before.
There have been previous tournaments where I’ve walked away thinking:
“That’s it. He’s turned the corner mentally.”
And then the next tournament arrives and within four games he is negotiating with the umpire about the existential unfairness of a net cord.
He is eight.
Development is not linear.
There will be excellent tournaments.
There will be terrible ones.
There will presumably be tournaments containing both within twenty minutes.
But Tuesday felt like a significant step.
He finished tenth in a very strong U10 field.
The eventual winner was Finn Saunders, which was hardly surprising and entirely deserved.
And Eddie walked away having demonstrated that he doesn’t merely belong on an U10 court as an experiment anymore.
He can compete there.
Not consistently with the top players yet.
That would be unrealistic.
But he can play.
He can push older players.
And, apparently, he can spend 150 minutes playing two junior tennis matches before finally transforming into an empty tracksuit for the ninth-place playoff.
That will do nicely.
And then, as if the tennis calendar felt we weren’t sufficiently committed already, another email arrived.
Invitation to the Somerset U10 County Tennis trials next month. The date actually clashes with Martial Arts grading
Of course.
Because apparently the logical reward for seven hours at Burnham is more tennis.
Onwards and upwards.
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