It's been a while since I've traveled myself for junior tennis tournaments. Superseries, locals, designated tournaments; I've done them all, but after a while, they all start to blur together. Sometimes when I get asked for advice, I skip to the generic voice recording tape of interview question responses; stay positive, work hard, try hard, and at the end of the day, it's about who is better that day; you or your opponent.
I don't necessarily think these are wrong statements, but sometimes what is needed is more specific to circumstances. That's always one thing you have to start off with when you ask a coach; instead of "what should we do" or "how should we prepare," ask more specific, individual questions, say, like, "I get nervous before a match and take a few games to just get my head into it; how should I combat that?" I also realize after traveling with a Seminole High Performance group this past weekend to a Superseries in Amelia Island that there are a lot of things that happen that neither players nor coaches can control. Things that you have to be flexible for, and things that after many, many years on the tennis circuit, is easy to get used to and easily taken for granted.
Like, say, rain delays. It rains. It might be a 30% chance of rain all day and it monsoons the whole day. There might be an 80% chance of rain and you don't see a drop of it. You can always get prepared for the weather, but you can never control it. You might have already played a few games, or a set, or you're waiting to start your match. Whatever it is, rain delays mean one thing; you need to stay flexible as a player. As a coach, I do what I've always done myself; I keep my legs raised up to rest them, I go for a light jog if I know the rain delay will likely take all morning and I haven't hit yet that day, I relax and enjoy my company, and, when all else fails, I do some homework and read. Keeping yourself busy is important, because a mistake that happens often is that you start thinking too much about your match. Who are you playing? What is he or she doing? Who are they with? What does their parent or coach think? How should you play them? Are they as nervous as you are? It happens to the best of us, but by the time you actually do get onto the court, you end up feeling so burnt out from over thinking that when it comes time to play, you can't focus. So try and get out off of the courts; go to eat, focus on something else, whether it's doing homework or trying to fling a quarter into an empty trash can from a flight of stairs (true story). This is the advantage of staying closer to the courts rather than further away; rain delays are a little easier to deal with.
Another random thought; the tournament director. Without fail, every tournament my parents (who were my coaches) always told me to go up to the tournament director and thank them. Whether I had won the tournament or lost first round, I always came up, shook the hand of the man or woman who ran the tournament, and left only when I did so. This is more about manners than about tennis; this person took their entire weekend to host a tournament, probably answered the phone and similar questions a billion times, woke up the earliest of everyone and went to bed the latest, and did everything in their power to run a smooth, drama-free tournament. They are human, and they did their best. Thanking them not only shows them your appreciation, but also makes you look like the classy tennis player the stereotype makes us out to be (sometimes). I'll never forget how when I had already started playing college, I bumped into a referee that had seen my younger brother Alex play in a tournament down in south Florida. He smiled and said; you must be Alex's sister--the tournament director still remembers you from when you were young, and your brother thanks him like you did when you were young too. A nice way to be remembered.
