I will be blogging from the U14 TE in Wrexham this Sunday and Monday. Updates will be posted on each of the evenings.

It was an early start this morning leaving at 5.15am for the 225 mile journey to Wrexham. The roads were clear as you’d expect on a Sunday morning and the journey was going well until I hit Wales and the fog came down and reduced visibility to about 10 metres!

I finally got to the tennis centre in Wrexham around 9am and was pleasantly surprised to see that the indoor centre had been extended last October so now they have 7 indoor hard courts and two indoor mini tennis courts to go with the 11 outdoor hard courts. It’s a great centre; I just wish it was closer to Kent!!

I spent the next 5 or 6 hours watching the matches and talking with the other coaches and parents explaining my plans to try to make travelling to these type of events more affordable and therefore more accessible to more players. A lot of coaches and academies have said that they would like me to add U16 & U14 Tennis Europe events to my calendar so I’m going to look into that for later next year.

There were some great performances today from the British players and the attitudes of all the players that I watched were much better than I’ve seen in the past at these events. Harry Simpson was only a few points away from taking out Denys Gevel, the top seed in qualies, after he took the 1st set 7-5 and lead 5-2 in the second before the Ukrainian tightened up his play and took the next 9 games in a row to lead 4-0 in the third. To Harry’s credit he remained professional even though his play at the start of the 3rd set was quite erratic. His head never dropped and he continued to flight hard taking the next 3 games to get the set back on serve. Unfortunately the top seed upped his game coming out with some massive passing shots when under pressure and took the next 3 games to take the match. Harry remained professional in defeat and I’m sure we’ll be seeing more of him in the future.

Another notable match was 11 year old Anastasia Mikheeva who took out no.1 seed in qualies Helena Kuppig. Anastasia was very focused from the start and her intensity and desire made her a very tough competitor today – I look forward to her match tomorrow against fellow qualifier Anais Gabriel.

There were also notable wins for Nicholas Nugent who beat the no.6 seed, Joe Woolley who beat the no.7 seed, Olivia Tomkins who beat the no.3 seed and Bethan Taylor who destroyed the no.8 seed 6-0, 6-2. All in all 10 British players qualified; let’s hope the extra matches in qualies will help them to gain Tennis Europe points in the main draw tomorrow.

It was great to catch up with some of the coaches that I haven’t seen in a while, John Hicks is still going strong for Win Tennis – any time you get a chance to chat to John take it, he’s so passionate and positive and he’s been there and done it at all levels. Dan Sanders (who runs the academy at Wrexham and is individual coach to Lisa Whybourn) is always welcoming and we have some great debates over British Tennis! It was also good to catch up with Mark Winship who explained how MY Tennis has taken over from the former Tennis Midlands setup at Loughborough – great to hear that things are back on track there.

There were quite a few coaches from various academies in Great Britain there today but I was still surprised at the number of British players that were there without a coach. It’s events like these where coaches need to see their players compete and if  the parents can’t afford to pay the coach then the coach really needs to be doing it for free. Yes it’s a Sunday and it’s out of the way in Wrexham but this is an international event and coaches working with this level of player need to see the standard and be there to see how the players react under pressure. Hopefully they’ll be more there for the main draw tomorrow.

Another good day at the North Wales Regional Tennis Centre today. I didn’t get to see a lot of the matches as I was meeting with various coaches to discuss the international events for 2011 but the matches I did see were of a high standard. 

Qualifier Rebecca Smaller played a solid match today taking out no.2 seed Pippa Carr 7-6(5), 6-1. I watched Rebecca in the last round of qualies yesterday and today, she’s a clever lefty who uses her heavy forehand well to push her opponent back and then takes on her backhand when she gets the chance. In both matches she’s competed hard and showed a good attitude throughout. 

Other notable wins in the U14 girls include 11 year old Anastasia Mikheeva beating fellow qualifier Anais Gabriel from Switzerland to gain her first Tennis Europe points and Wild Card Eden Richardson taking out the 4th seed and fellow Brit Patricia Valimaa. 

In the boys Sam Rice had a great win taking out the top seed in 3 sets. The first two sets were tight and Sam had to fight hard to stay in the match in the second set but once it got to the third he looked much more confident and ran away with it 6-1. Qualifier Nicholas Nugent won a tight match 6-4, 7-6(6) against a German boy ranked over 500 places higher and there were also wins for British qualifiers William Archer and Ben Stride who both achieved their first Tennis Europe points today. 

It’s good to see the British players doing well today. This is the stage where all players have to start showing the types of game styles that are going to make them into professional players. They have to be physical and have to impose their game on their opponents. Many players win at U14 / U16 Tennis Europe level and even at U18 ITF level by having solid games without any weapons but these players rarely have an impact in the senior game. I’ve seen players lose yesterday and today that will be at a higher level in 3/4 years time than the players who have beaten them purely because they seem focused on developing their games and are not afraid to take risks. 

Winning at this level is important but I would much rather have a player who develops as they progress rather than be successful as a juniors and then fade away in the seniors because they’re still playing like a 15/16 year old – we’ve all seen many of them in the past. When was the last player to win under 12 Nationals and then go on to win U18’s? Let me know if you find one because I’ve not been able to. Who was the boy that beat Oli Golding in the final of U14 Nationals? I was there and I can’t remember but I know he’s nowhere now!

I always ask the players I work with “How much did you improve today?”. If they win the match but respond with a 2/10 then I’m never as happy as if a player lost the match but scored their improvement at a 7/10. There’s a time for winning but there’s also a huge amount of time as a junior player that has to be spent developing.

It’s been a great couple of days, it was just a shame to get caught up on the M25 (after 4 hours in the car) at 7pm tonight! 

The factsheet for both Kenya U18 ITF Grade 5’s should be available from Tomorrow (Tuesday) and if you have any questions please let me know.