A Junior navigates the draw at a local tournament
I will be participating in an upcoming local tennis tournament for girls ages 16 to 18 years old on August 3rd through August 7th. There will be 32 girls in the draw and I believe 8 will be seeded. Most of these girls I will know somewhat as I have seen them play for their schools or other local tournaments, but there will be a few from other counties in my State and also maybe a few from Delaware and Southern Pennsylvania. I will be one of the younger girls in the draw as I just turned 16 back in May and I think some of these girls who are 18 will be off to college this coming Fall.
The tournament will be on hard courts and will be played in the 2 out of 3 set format as they usually are for me. I think the seeding will be announced probably the Sunday or Monday before August 3rd.
To prepare for the tournament, I will continue working with what I have been doing this entire Summer: at least 2 hours a day working on footwork drills, volley & net drills, my serve, backhand and running backhand drills, my forehand both on the baseline and in mid court. I also work on my specialty shots like lobs and drop shots. Other things I work on with my coach is how to strategize points better: when to hit a lob, drop shot, slice backhand to something else to try to control the point better. That is a major thing I need to work on in my game.
So leading up to the tournament, I will pinpoint the specifics of what my coach worked on with me that day to prepare me the best for this tournament. Then once the tournament starts, I will let you all know how each match went that I played along the way.
I hope you all will like my tournament journey.
Good luck when you get there. In the meantime, I will like to know how you will warm up ON THE DAY of a match. Preparation, sleeping pattern, breakfast (if early in the morning) and other things you can find important. 🙂
I am one not to really look into the draw of a tournament until it starts to take shape. So I guess I am more of taking a match as they come type of player. So heading into the 1st match, I will prepare like I normally would do. I will hit for about 30 to 45 minutes and stretch. It is also according to how hot it is that day. I will just go through the normal routine or forehand, backhand, serve,volleys, overhands. As for sleep patterns I won’t really do anything specific. I won’t stay up really late the night before though as the match days usually start pretty early. I am usually not a huge breakfast eater. My breakfast will definitely include some sort of fruit and yogurt. Probably some sort of granola type cereal and that is it. I will make sure during the match I am extremely hydrated with water and my go go squeeze apple sauce. Other than that I will put my ear buds in and zone out to my music which is usually a mix of Pop energetic mood music. About 15 minutes before the match I will turn that off and just zone out on my own and focus and then I am ready.
This is exciting! Are you nervous at all or excited to get out there?
It is really exciting. I am not nervous at all. I am going to be one of the youngest players in the tournament so I don’t have any expectations. I am just going to do my best and have fun.