25. BREXIT!

Brexit has caused all sorts of issues for so many people and tennis players are no exception. If your player lives in mainland Europe then all is good but if your player is a UK passport holder and wants to travel to Europe to compete or train then take note.

The new rules have made travel to Europe to play competitive tennis more complicated and the players now have to keep a detailed note of the number of days they spend in Europe and plan accordingly. No longer can a player go freely to France or Spain or wherever for a few weeks of clay court training then carry on to compete for a few more weeks. Oh no, now they have to strictly adhere to the 90 days in 180 days rule. Get caught out and they could face a fine or even a ban on travel for a period of time. Surely not I hear you ask but yes, the passport people are quite hot on this now. When trying to return home from Riga, Latvia recently, my player had to wait in line for almost half an hour whilst the passport officer counted every single stamp in her passport to ensure that she had not over stayed her welcome on the continent. She hadn’t but was admittedly quite close to the 90-day maximum, hence the journey home. 

The problem that arises with tennis players however, is that they cannot plan very effectively as they never know how long they will be in a tournament. Sometimes they can gauge that they should theoretically make it to the finals weekend but if the tournament is of a higher level, they may predict an early exit. But what happens if the player unexpectedly does very well and makes a final but they have insufficient days left to stay? Do they play the final and then hope that the passport officer is sympathetic or do they have to forfeit the event in order to abide by the rules?

Similarly, what does a player do if once they are out of a tournament, all the direct flights home are sold and they have to take a more protracted route home which involves a stopover. This happened to my player recently. She was competing in Serbia, and as this country is deemed to be outside of Europe, this trip did not count as part of her 90-day allowance – she was very close to her limit once again. She reached the final and as soon as she knew that she would be leaving the next day she tried to book her direct flight home.  However, all the flights had gone and the only alternative was a flight to Split in Croatia then a direct flight home from there. Unfortunately, no connecting flight could be booked so she had to take a flight to Split; go through customs and immigration; and then check in for her flight to the UK, which meant that her passport had to be stamped in and out of Croatia, and despite the fact that she was only there for 30 minutes it still counted as one of her Europe days. 

These restrictions make training in Europe virtually impossible as the British players need to save their days for competition – I just wish they would bring out some kind of work permit/visa that the players could apply for as at the moment the players who live in Europe on a permanent basis are laughing as they can travel to as many tournaments as they like without any restrictions, whilst the Brits have to travel further afield (added cost) or wait for days to come off their total before they can re-enter the continent that we were once a part of. 

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