Wrexham $10,000 Futures

Hi,

Ok, just a quick update - at the weekend I took the long drive up to Wrexham (four hours in total: including an hour long standstill on the M40) along with a hitting partner, Ashley, to sign in for the futures. Luckily I actually knew I was already in this one so there was no risk in going that I might not get in! We checked in to our hotel which was like luxury in comparison to the recent trip to Manchester that saw us check in to the hotel of nightmares (pictures will come...) before signing in and booking a practice court for that evening. We had to hit indoors for half an hour as there was no let up in the Welsh weather for this outdoor tournament!

That evening the draw came out and we both had 10am starts, I would be playing Marc Beckles, 82 in the UK in the first round of qualifying. Having set the alarm for 7am, we were up and after attacking the buffet breakfast made our way to the club for 8am... to find it not open until 9am. So a quick turnaround back to the hotel for 45 minutes before we arrived to warm up on a practice court at 9am.

I was slow to start and came out pretty nervous in the first set but felt like I had been returning really well over the last few days in training, despite not serving particularly well (although this is normally the other way round!) I took a bagel set unfortunately but knew that I was trading strokes well with the 24 year old. All I found the other player to be doing was making me play that extra ball and my forehand weapon wasn't firing as it should. I had a lot of chances in the match, many short balls in particularly onto my backhand that I either missed or didn't do enough with. I managed to pull off a break in the 2nd set to secure a game in the match which I think is the least my return deserved as it had been going particularly well.

Despite the scoreline I was happy with the way I had played and felt like it was the first time I had been happy trading from the back of the court with futures level players and in particular had noticed that if I can take my opportunities more efficiently and solidify other parts of my game, my forehand will be able to help me greatly at this level in the future!

That afternoon we got back on the road and completed our 500-mile round trip a little earlier than we would have liked but satisfied with the way we had both played.

Next up Roehampton qualifying starts next weekend with sign in on Saturday. Luckily it's a lot closer to home!

Me.

Hi

My name is Jack Saunders. I am a professional tennis player from the UK and am 20 years old. I'm going to be blogging about my tennis experiences both on and off the court - my training, my schedule and everything and anything that I do. I don't know if this will get read much now or whether I am just doing this to document what I do for my grandchildren at the moment... so I will include anything that I think might be of interest to all of those people.

I will try to upload photos, videos and anything else of my training and what I am doing. I will also answer any questions that people have for me.

So, just a quick update as to where I am right now...

I have been training full time for over two years now. I started working with a coach full time after I left college and played a few local and national events but with very mixed results and due to the little number of tournaments I played, the ridiculous LTA system means I am still in fact a 9.2 rating. Enough about the LTA though as I can assure you they won't feature much in this blog! With my coach we developed a strong programme both on the court and in the gym alongside working very hard to pay for it all (along with input from family!) and all those other little things that professionalism demands of you. I will obviously endeavour to elaborate more on these in the future.

I then moved to Spain at the beginning of this year for five months where I worked with a team of coaches in Castelldefels, just outside Barcelona at Elitennis Academy. I played futures, tournaments and trained excessively out there which was exactly what I needed and I will write more about the programme and the training I did out there at some point too! With some photos :)

I am now back in England training hard and playing a series of futures events. I hope to update this blog regularly to let you know what it is I am doing, where I am and how I am getting on... Please feel free to ask me any questions about any of what I am doing and I will answer! Any feedback about who is reading this as well will be more than welcome :)

Anyway enough for now - I will post my first proper post soon! So watch this space...