jamiebakeronline.myfreeforum.org

admin · Site Admin Joined: 04 Jul 2006 Posts: 80

Last week I competed in a Men's Futures Event in Edinburgh ( The Scottish open Clay Court Championships). This is a senior world ranking event. The highest World ranking events are Grand Slams (e.g. Wimbledon) and the lowest are Futures events. $15k is just the overall prize money for the tournament.

I got a Wild Card into the Main Draw of the tournament from Tennis Scotland. In the first round I played an English guy with the same ranking as me called Morgan Phillips. It was a really high standard match and I ended up winning it 7-6, 2-6, 6-3. However, this does not tell the whole story. As I was about to serve for the match at 5-3 in the final set, the heavens opened in true Scottish fashion! Three hours later, we went indoors to finish the match, where I did serve it out. This is an example of how versatile and adaptable you have to be if you want to be a successful professional tennis player. I can tell you that it was not easy going on to serve for a match on a different surface! In the second round I lost to a Swedish player 6-1, 6-3. He is ranked 290 in the world. I played well but my opponent was just too fast on the day and was able to put me in too many difficult situations. It was a great match to get as I learned a lot from it. I got another world ranking point from winning my first match. This takes my tally up to 4 and will take my ranking to about 1100!

Being from Glasgow, it made an enjoyable change to stay at home during the tournament. Having some home comforts around me definitely helps me to relax during the tournament. I will probably only have this luxury about two to three weeks of the year!