Tarbes 2008 - Grade 1 U14 Tennis Europe Event
Katy Dunne, Claudia Marsala and myself went off to Tarbes, France for a short trip to train, watch some world class tennis and to get a feel for the standard in their age group worldwide.
The tournament was held indoors, not normally an indoor tennis centre, but for the rest of the year is actually used to hold cattle markets!!!
It was a great oppurtunity for the girls to see the standard of players ranked top 10 in Europe and some ranked in the world U18. It was a great motivating tool for the girls as they saw that they are not too far away from really competing with their peer group. katy had even beaten a girl that was in the tournament.
The girls practised charting matches, reviewed the stats, socuted players because they will be playing them soon.
Big difference between our players and the worlds best was a great intensity around each ball and between points, strong mental attitude and disciplined before and after matches.
In France there are tennis courts everywhere...each village normally has at least 1 court. We found a nice small village with two hard courts, 2 clay courts and a wall!! Therefore each day we managed to get around 3 hours on court to train (trying to beat the coach) and an hour or two of fitness...
The girls also practiced their french because the only way to order food or drink was in french otherwise they went hungry!!!!
A great trip and the girls came back buzzing and feeling very motivated!!!
Coach Hayward
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