Teen Tennis/Tarbes – Jan 19th-27th

I spent a week in Bolton (near Manchester) with the GB U/14 girls team, assisting their training programme (tennis conditioning, injury prevention & recovery) during Teen Tennis – a warm-up tournament for the prestigious unofficial U/14 world-championships in Tarbes, France. Next I went out to Tarbes for a few days to watch the best juniors in the world competing. Past winners/finalists include Rafael Nadal, Richard Gasquet, Andy Murray, Kim Clijsters, the list goes on… It was a pretty impressive standard (particularly in the boys event) and interesting to see the professionalism of many athletes at such a young age – physical and mental preparation, attitude on court, desire to compete, tactical and physical variety, etc. Two Brits (Laura Robson and Liam Broady) were eventual finalists, and show potential to progress to the top level in the game…watch this space!

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Heading into 2008 :)

I had a flat party last Friday, which a bunch of tennis girls who I haven't seen for ages came to - it was a great laugh. After several drinks we headed into town (the grassmarket) and danced the night away... I have to admit I didn't really achieve a lot on Saturday :)

On Sunday I went hiking in the Borders, and was totally outnumbered by Kiwis (7:1). Jo, Steve, Mark, Sylvia, Ed, Abby and Bonnie (Jo's sister) put up with me for the day (they kind of had to, cuz I was one of the drivers!) and we had a really nice walk, despite the weather which didn't give us very good views. Nice to get some fresh air though...





For Hogmanany Jo & Steve were having a pot luck dinner party at their flat, which was really good fun. There was masses of fantastic food plus a great group of people. I opted to stay sober (??!!) but most of the Kiwis had tickets for the Street Party which is always fun and has pretty impressive fireworks.

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