A little over 4 years ago in September 2018, I joined the coaching team of Warwick Boat Club with the ambition to inspire and develop aspiring junior players to pursue a performance pathway in tennis. Since starting with only a small number of players at the early stages of their tennis journey, a performance culture has been instilled with more players regularly training and competing year on year. The players’ improved performances in competitions have attracted a growing number of aspiring players from within the region to join the club to access the performance training programme and represent the clubs junior and adult teams. Each player has shown incredible commitment and dedication to their tennis development, so as a reward and further motivation to continue working hard, I wanted to give them the opportunity in the off-season to finish the year in the best way possible with the club’s first Performance Training Trip to The La Manga Racquets Club in the south of Spain.
As the official overseas training base for the LTA over the past 30 years, many of Britain’s top players past and present have trained at La Manga, including the likes of Andy Murray, Laura Robson, Tim Henman and Elena Baltacha. Having recently undergone an exciting transformation to upgrade facilities, La Manga provided the perfect blend of first-class clay courts, sunshine and idyllic surrounds, making it the perfect destination to take a group of players with myself and the coaching team of Mason Recci, Soumeya Anane and Harry Lazell.
We had a group of 22 players aged between 13 and 19 attend the trip, 15 players from Warwick Boat Club and 7 from Warwickshire. For many of the players, this was their first experience of high-performance training for 5+ hours each day, playing on real clay courts, tennis specific strength and conditioning, Padel Tennis and travelling overseas without their parents. They stepped out of their comfort zones and developed valuable skills to the benefit of their personal and tennis development.
The typical day started with the group meeting for breakfast at the racquets club at 8:30am before the morning training session between 9:30am-12:00pm. The coaching team would put the players through their paces with team physical and racket warm-ups, followed by high-intensity drills and S&C, then to end the session, the players and coaches would pair up in a fun doubles competition of ‘Top Gun’ to try and earn their way up to the top court. After sweeping the clay courts, collecting the balls and tidying away, the players and coaches would set off to the supermarket to buy groceries and take it back to their villas to then make, eat lunch and rest before the afternoon matchplay session between 2:30-5:00pm. The matchplay sessions split the group into 2 teams (British Bulldogs v Union Jacks) for a team competition of ‘Battle of the Brits’. The teams and matchups were mixed up each day and they played a mix of singles and doubles over several rounds, earning points for their team. The first matchplay session had 12 of the Spanish Academy players mix-in, competing with and against our players. Our players performed extremely well and based on results, claimed the edge over the Spanish players! Once the afternoon session was over, the players had an amazing time playing Padel Tennis between 5:00-6:30pm. The players and coaches didn’t want to stop playing, it was highly addictive and extremely fun, no wonder it is one of the world’s fastest growing sports. The group would all head out to the restaurant for the evening meal, unwind and socialise after a long day of hard work!
All in all, it was an amazing trip with an incredible team spirit and atmosphere. It was great to see all the players mixing in with each other and starting to learn what the life of a high performance athlete is all about. Everyone worked extremely hard throughout, had a lot of fun, made new friends and I’m sure positive memories for life! A big thank you to Mason, Soumeya and Harry for helping inspire and encourage high performance standards and behaviours for all the players during the trip in their roles as coaches, mentors and supervisors. It was a huge responsibility and I couldn’t have done it without you. The La Manga team thought we were all fantastic and they would love to have us back again with the aim to do this every year!