Tennis trips to Europe

I took a Tennis Scotland squad of 5 kids to Portugal for a training camp in Lisbon, followed by a European U/14 event in Maia. The training week went well - we got lots of practice on the clay courts and plenty of fitness done as well. Unfortunately the weather was bad during the tournament week, it rained nearly every day, and the organisation was really poor so overall I didn’t think it was a great trip. But counting the days until the ski holiday kept me going :)

After skiing (see above) I took another 6 kids to Poitiers, France with Kris Gray (pronounced “Pwat-ee-ay” but renamed “Poyters” in an Ayrshire accent). The tournament organisation was 100 times better and everyone was really friendly and welcoming, the only difficulty was there were four different venues being used for matches. I was originally supposed to be taking 7 or 8 kids on my own, which would have been ridiculous – thankfully I managed to convince TS this was a bad idea. None of the kids did too well in singles which was disappointing, but two of the girls got to the doubles final, so that was a positive.