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!