66. LATERAL THINKING

I have blogged before about the stress of travel days on the tennis tour and trust me, they are stressful! Last week was a case in point but very much the reality of life on the tour. Let me fill you in……

My player and I were in Parma, Italy for a WTA125 tournament. The event started on the Sunday but my player’s first match wasn’t until Wednesday, so there was a lot of killing time at the start of the week. She and her partner won their first match so they played again on the Thursday, and then again on Friday. Whilst still in the tournament the players cannot really make any travel plans for after the event as they do not know when they will be finished and pre booked flights could be a total waste of money as you cannot predict in advance if you are going to win or lose a match.

Friday came and the semi final was played. My player (and her partner) lost a close fought match (to the eventual title winners) and we immediately started to make plans to come home. We had previously seen a couple of flights scheduled to leave nearby Bologna – one on Friday night and one on Saturday morning – so we tried to book one of those. However, when we looked we were saddened to discover they were all SOLD OUT. Hmmm. What now? The transport laid on by the tournament only offered lifts to Bologna Airport (at three specified times of the day) so we knew straight away that our homeward journey was going to become more complicated.

Next option was a flight from Milan (there are three airports in Milan) so we looked but once again were faced with SOLD OUT on pretty much every website we checked. Milan Fashion Week had hit the town and all the flights were gone. One flight was available to London Heathrow but at a cost of c.£500 each. This was out of the question. Despite making the semi finals of the WTA125 event, my player had only won £565 (gross) and this was before the 30% tax was deducted and the cost of her flight out to Italy and food etc. Yes the prize money is that bad! But these events have to be played if you want to climb the rankings, as wins mean ranking points.

So, this is where a tennis player needs to also be a good lateral thinker and a problem solver. How were we going to get home? Maybe via a multi-city option? We tried that but again the flights were either sold out or way too expensive. However, we did find a potential flight leaving from Venice the next day so started to explore this further.

How do we get to Venice – a mere c.250km away – in time for the flight to London? Trains! Ordinarily an option one would shy against in the UK as the rail network can be very expensive and unreliable, but the situation is quite the opposite on the European Continent where trains are good, fast and relatively cheap.

Our research led us to a train from Parma to the central station in Bologna. A quick change then another train to Venice Mestre station. From there we knew there was a bus to the airport. So that’s what we booked. We managed to wangle a lift to Parma station in the morning and luckily for us, all of our connections were on time.

We made it to Venice in time for the flight but then we had to work out how we were going to get home from Gatwick once we had landed. Our car was at home – airport parking is not an option as you never know which airport you are going to fly home to – Gatwick, Heathrow, Luton, Stansted – or even further afield. This time we were coming back into Gatwick so it was two trains to Woking then a lift from a lovely neighbour. The previous trip however we had only been able to get a flight back to Stansted, which is never an easy place to get back from. How they can call Stansted a ‘London Airport’, I will never know as it is no where near London! On that occasion, the cheapest option was to hire a car and drive home so that’s what we did!

So, with a bit of lateral thinking we did indeed get home from Parma. It took two cars, a bus, five trains and a plane but we made it in around about 12 hours and for half the price of the direct flight to Heathrow – an important factor to a tennis player traveling on a tight budget. A very long day but with the Brexit restrictions on the number of days we can each spend in Europe, an overnight stay to get a flight on Sunday wasn’t an option. Travelling on the tennis tour is mad – where in the Netflix ‘Breakpoint’ series do we see this side of story? This is the reality – it really is planes, trains and automobiles!

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