A Parent’s Perspective

Laura Marks
Jun 10, 2021
5 min read

Updated: Jun 11, 2021

I’ve been inspired to write this blog by this year’s ladies’ finalists at Roland Garros – Barbora Krejcikova and Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova (who I’ve been a fan of for many years, love her game). Huge achievement from both making their first grand slam singles final and great to hear their words afterwards.. Krejcikova said she had always wanted to play an intense match like that, ever since she was a junior to have an opportunity to fight and be challenged and if she had lost she would still have been proud of herself. And Pavlyuchenkova in her press conference noting how she keeps balance in her life off the court. She was a top junior winning junior slams and No. 1 junior in the world at age 14 and many have said she has underperformed all these years - being a top 30/40 player for 10+ years, persevering and making your first singles slam final at age 29 could perhaps be construed in a different way!

Inspiring role models to say the least and the ladies game currently has many. I doubt many had these two on their radar to make the final and we could say injuries/withdrawals etc during this slam but tennis is a game of unknowns which mirrors life and personally I love to see other players coming through too and realising their potential.

Tennis is my earliest memory. I grew up in a house opposite a local 3 court club – my bedroom window overlooked the courts – all my family played. When I wasn’t playing, I was watching. I had very little coaching, joining a couple of squads and competed from the age of 11, however always knew my passion for the game ran very deeply and I believed in my own ability. At the age of 16, I worked Saturdays in the local library to fund my one lesson a week with Chris Bradnam who also coached a couple of the UK’s top 5 players. I worked hard to get myself into the strong county squad and then to US Collegiate tennis on scholarship. I had few opportunities during my junior years but was highly self motivated and maximised what I had – the wall was my best friend during those years and I could place my serve wherever I wanted!

Coming back to tennis years later as a parent has been fascinating and continues my love of the game and my journey within this amazing sport. Introducing both of my children to tennis was a natural progression for me and through doing so I’ve reconnected in a far bigger way with this sport then I would have envisaged during my younger years.

I have a few tales that especially resonate with me. One below..

When Amelie was 8, we travelled to Nottingham to play a G3 9U orange ball tournament. It was a round robin tournament with the box winners progressing to play semis, final and 3/4

play off. Amelie had a relatively good day, winning most of her matches in the box. The last match went to the wire – they split sets and it was 6-6 in the 3rd – deciding point for the match. Amelie was serving. She put down a great first serve which hit the line and the opponent called it out. Amelie naturally disputed but the opponent stood her ground and the court supervisor did not get involved. Exactly the same thing happened on the 2nd serve. My kid was nearly in melt down. The referee came on but the match was done. Spectators that I did not know were up in arms about the injustice. When Amelie came off court she was furious, upset and took a while to calm down. It led to a conversation along the lines of.. one day in your life, you will do everything “right” and through no fault of your own it will go against you and you will need to find a way to deal with that and move on.

What she didn’t know and I didn’t tell her at the time, was that match was the deciding match for the box. The other girl went on to the semi and final that day. In the car on the way home, after reflection (I had 3 hours!) I made a decision… Having taken the time off work, 6 hour round trip in the car, costs for the day etc, I naturally wanted Amelie to gain as much as she could from the tournament – matches, recent form points, possibly a medal/trophy. However, what she actually received from the experience was far greater – having that conversation with an 8 year old which came out of a losing match was the real gain from that day.

Where it all began! On court at DL Finchley..

It was then I decided to do the best I could to be a parent who would see the bigger picture and fully embrace ALL the opportunities – positive, negative, nurturing, difficult, whilst supporting my child. It’s not always easy and certainly a path with an enormous amount of ups and downs but the benefits and learnings are infinite if you are open – both for parent and child.

This isn’t a blog about the C word but having recently read a thread on Instagram around cheating and also my recent first experience of being sworn at and accused of teaching my daughter to cheat at a tournament, I’ll touch on this a bit further. I believe the issues are and always will be there. The reality is that errors occur in matches too and it can be VERY difficult to differentiate – one person will see it one way, one another. Things happen at the very top level… in yesterday’s semi Krejcikova v Sakkari on match point, a ball that was called out was overruled. Technology not being used in the match showed the ball was out and had been correctly called. Krejcikova had her arms up in triumph but had to replay the point – she won the match a couple of games later and possibly only because she was able to put that point into perspective and move on. Good life learning on and off the court.

From one parent to another, a few pointers to remember:

Tennis is a game to be enjoyed
It’s a life experience every time your child steps on court.
Be guided by your child and help them to have their own voice
Find a team that you can trust and communicate with.
Learn a good breathing method that you can use when watching matches
Progression is NOT all down to rankings, ratings and wins
All players develop differently, at different times and in different ways
Respect officials at tournaments – they are doing their job
Remember that we ALL make mistakes – even technology does!
Emotions can naturally run high during competition – take a breath before you react
Tennis offers many different paths and there is a place for everyone!