113. GOING IN COLD

Last week my player made the final of a W35 in Luxembourg. This was a great achievement as she hasn’t had the opportunity to play too many singles matches recently. The reason being is that her doubles ranking is higher than her singles so when she goes to play a doubles tournament (which she needs to do to maintain/increase her ranking), she often cannot play singles that week as the entry cut is too high.

Anyway, that’s not the focus for this blog, although maybe it should be for another? The topic here is what do you do if your player does not have a travelling/full time coach, she reaches the final, and then finds out there is no one left at the tournament to warm her up before her biggest match of the week? It’s difficult but it happens – as it did to us last week!

At the start of the week, the tournament venues are full and there are no end of players to ask for a match warm up. However, as the days pass and players lose their matches, the number of people on site drops dramatically and by the end of the week the only players left are those in the final and whilst it is not unheard of, the players who are in the final do not really want to warm each other up, for understandable reasons.

So what does a player do when she has made the final but is either at the tournament alone, or is with a parent/support person who does not play?

At the higher ranked tournaments (the WTAs/ATPs and Grand Slams), there are typically ‘hitters’ available who will hit with a player if he/she cannot find anyone. Often these players are college players, or players from the local, or host, club. However at the mid/lower levels, there are rarely such people so the players who make the final and are therefore there on the last day, have to either make do with some hand fed balls by a parent or alternatively, they simply do not get a warm up at all. Not the best preparation for a final!

We were struggling to find anyone for a warm up for the final last week so had resigned ourselves to the fact that it was going to be me who would hand feed my player balls in an attempt to help her get her body loose and match ready. Far from ideal! Fortunately however, on arrival at the venue a couple of hours before the final, we managed to find a very nice young male player who happened to be on site and he was more than happy to hit a few balls. We were so grateful!

But this is simply another reality of life on the pro tennis tour. It is not an issue for the top level players, who typically travel with an ‘entourage’, which invariably includes a hitting partner. But lower down the ranks, many players do not have a full time/travelling coach, usually because they cannot afford one, so they need to be prepared to find some alternative kind of warm up before a match, especially if they manage to go deep into the draw and make the final. If the player is playing doubles then more often than not, she will have her doubles partner to hit with, but if not then it can be more problematic. All added stress for the players trying to graft a living out of tennis!

#realitytennis

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