A satirical look at the ‘Tennis Family’
Mum, Dad, Batboy (the junior tennis player) and Dancing Queen (the talented balletic daughter).Having to balance family life around trying to help each child achieve their goals is a very daunting prospect. Let us take each member of the family one by one…
Mum, a busy-bee, loves to play social tennis at the local club and has many other activities to juggle around her busy schedule. She is the chief organiser of the family calendar.
Dad, working at the office all week, but tries to play tennis for the men’s team whenever he can. Previous years of grandeur on the court as a junior and wishing he had taken the game more seriously. He battles away but knows that one day Batboy will take him down.
Batboy, The little tennis starlet. 12 years old with 6 years of coaching and tournaments in the bag. Always needing to play more events to help improve his ranking and the family all know it!
Dancing Queen, she is 9 years old, can play tennis a little bit but has no intention of following Batboy. She is so talented at dancing that her club are on the way to do a show at Euro Disney.
A FREE family holiday on the horizon.
It is important that the whole family support her, especially Batboy, because later in the summer the family are all off to the south and east coast of England to play a series of summer tournaments.
Batboy plays, the family watch in anticipation, then after the matches he gets changed and they are all off for a short walk for everyone to the beach and seafront where it is playtime of a different kind!
One, two or three tournaments later the holidays are over. The family have had great fun together, supported each other’s events and Batboy’s ranking has gone through the roof. He loves his tennis more and more and even the Dancing Queen is getting a little jealous of the “Tennis Bug”.
Back to every day life and every weekend Batboy seems to have one tournament after another. Mum and Dad alternate who takes him. So, Batboy gets a different perspective of what each of them see and say to him and Dancing Queen shares her time with mum and dad individually too.
The moral of the story is, enjoy the ride. It is a great life, super fun and you would dearly miss it when it is all over.
Do not treat any of it as a chore that manifests itself in a critical reaction to the child after a loss because the whole trip seemed like an inconvenience, but not so when he wins.
You are involved in a very special world. The world of tennis. Play it, Watch it, Love it
Until next time!
Phil Vivian is a highly experienced tennis coach with over 40 years experience as a professional tennis coach.
He is currently Head Coach at the Lee Valley Hockey and Tennis Centre in Olympic Park and is also a PTR Tutor.
To contact Phil visit his website: tennisclubprogramme.co.uk