JV Tennis Academy goes to
Tournaments
J V Tennis Academy offers the opportunity to travel and compete in tournaments with a coach and in a group of other players all striving for excellence in tennis. The purpose of these tournament support trips is overall to educate the players on how elite players conduct themselves in a tournament environment.
The goal is to guide the players to build good habits, for them to become more independent and autonomous, and feel more competent in a tournament environment with or without mum and dad present.
These trips have a high emphasis on professionalism and doing the little things right. Players will learn how to analyse a match and more importantly their opponent. They will learn how to create short-term performance and process-oriented goals, and how to focus on these without losing sight of their game plan. They will be taught how, based on their analysis of their opponent, to create a game plan as well as how to analyse when that initial game plan is not succeeding, when and how to pivot, and what maybe to incorporate in their plan B, then similarly C and D etc. if needed.
Players will learn the importance of routines and how to develop those, macro levels such as; morning routines, bed time routines, and warm-up in the beginning of the day. And then more micro routines like warm up just prior to the match, cool down after the match - both physical and mental analysis. And then more micro such as routines between points, between change of ends, before serve, before return etc.
Players will cook and clean as a team, plan their meals, be taught a basic understanding of macro nutrients, as well as when to eat what macros and how to get these nutrients. For example, players will learn about carbohydrate loading prior to tournaments and eating complex carbs in the lead up to tournaments, as well as to eat at least 2 hours prior to morning matches so that the necessary energy systems are present when needed. They will learn the importance of packing their own food for the day rather than relying on the canteen. Players will learn the concept of leaving things better than they found it. The players will be encouraged to clean up after themselves even at restaurants, the tennis club and develop an understanding that you may be a brilliant tennis player but there are a variety of other things others will remember you by.
Players will learn to manage their time effectively taking into account a fundamental understanding of all the moving pieces; For example, taking the above into consideration; players know their match is at 8:30am, so I need to get up a certain amount of time prior to get the necessary nutrients in, time to shower, pack, travel to the courts, warm-up and go through my routines.
A fundamental goal of these trips is to give the kids an opportunity to win, lose, and learn to go through all the trials, tribulations and victories without mum and dad there. The journey to the top is long and rigorous, it is not even a marathon or an ultra marathon, it is a trek around the world, not a sprint and it takes a village. For your players to succeed they need to be able to handle the wins and losses by themselves, away from home all the while knowing they have a strong support system in the background.
Finally, these trips emphasise the importance of friends and a team. Tennis is an individual sport and can be very lonely at times. The players learn how traveling in a team can decrease on bulk costs like accommodation, travel and food, how it can assist with warming up, cooling down and provide a strong support if going through a string of losses, not to mention having a team fans when you have a ripper win.
To date these trips have been completely within Victoria but as our players develop more we will organise trips to larger tournaments interstate such as nationals, as well as internationally to ITF ranking and ATP/WTA ranking tournaments. The trips are all inclusive; accommodation, travel (fuel and van/bus hire), food, and coach.