23. TRAVEL DAY STRESS

One of the most stressful things about life on the tour has to be the travel days. Not so much the first travel day when you are setting off from home to your chosen tournament but the days when you are travelling from one tournament to another and have tight time frames to adhere to. 

The tennis tours don’t really allow much time to get from one tournament to another. Take this week for example, my player is in Meitar, Israel – an hour drive from Tel Aviv. It is Friday. She has just lost her semi-final match. Her next tournament is in Valencia, Spain and the sign in is tomorrow at 6pm Spanish time.  She now has to work out the logistics of how she is going to get there in the least possible time and on a budget. She also has to collect her prize money, get back to her accommodation, pack, and arrange transport to Tel Aviv airport – none of which could be done until she knew for sure she was out of the tournament. There is no planning ahead on the tour so if you like all your ‘ducks in line’ well in advance, then do not play professional tennis!

The stress can be big, almost as much as the matches themselves, and that isn’t just for the players. As a tennis parent, I also feel the stress and if possible, need to be there or at the end of a phone to help with all the arrangements, if required, so as to ease the burden on my player. So, the last hour has been spent researching flights out of Israel and into Spain.  Nothing direct of course – that would be far too simple! And if not direct, how long is the stopover – is a hotel required? Does my player need to change airports/terminals? Is there enough time? What if the first flight is delayed – will she miss her connection? Will her bags make it to the final destination – and so the list goes on. 

Sometimes travel between tournaments is relatively simple – a train ride; a car journey; a boat trip(!); but when international flights are involved things get a whole lot more stressful. This is not so for the higher-ranked players who have agents, managers and coaches who deal with all of the arrangements but lower down the pecking order, it is invariably the player who has to sort out all the finer details, and that is after a stressful match when the last thing you want to do is start booking flights – all you really want to do is process the result but there is no time for that as the next tournament beckons. Each extra day spent at a tournament costs money so once out of the event, the player needs to move on as soon as she can. 

The covid pandemic added to the travel stress (as it did in all aspects of life) but some of the protocols and checks are still in place around the world, which add to the anxiety. And then there are extra security checks in some countries, especially in the Middle East, and extra time must be allocated for these. So next time you are at an airport going on holiday and feel a little stressed, take a moment to be thankful you are not a touring pro who may not know where she is going until she gets to the airport and may have little idea of how she is going to get to her final destination even when she lands! 

Just in case you were wondering, my player did make it out of Israel. She landed at 11.30pm at Luton. I was there to pick her up. Then it was home for a few hours – and two loads of laundry – then off to Gatwick at 5am for the early morning flight to Valencia. A slightly crazy schedule this week but the end of the season beckons so tournament opportunities are limited and the race for points and prizes continues.

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