British Tennis Forum - Celebrating 20 Years!

First serve wrote:

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Hi All. We (my partner) joined a couple of months ago - based in the south of UK, and reading posts for many years. Dont want to get too involved as i am a tennis parent !!! of a uk player rising steadily up the rankings hampered by some untimely injuries and an op two years ago which as far as i know now completely recovered. What is interesting to me is how the behind the scenes details affecting performance in any given event are rarely known. eg weather, balls, court surface, court speed, health, etc etc and so i thought i would join and maybe give some background info if appropriate from time to time - Its tough out there traveling and competing.

-- Edited by First serve on Wednesday 27th of May 2026 10:26:01 AM

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 Welcome to the board, First Serve, and your partner! V interested to see your thoughts as and when - to your list, I often think we also don't know about mental health and how it contributes. Someone could have just split up with a partner, have trouble at home, general anxiety, hate life on the road and travelling and be struggling with those and having their performance impacted. I am sure a lot of that happens and we end up commenting on how poorly someone played without knowing any of that context.

Of course, we are very keen to guess who your child is and hope they have a good season on the grass, if playing that level, and more widely as well!