In the Spring of 1991 I travelled to Europe with Brett Patten and Peter Gerrans, two highly ranked Western Australian players who I had seen play in a younger age group in numerous junior Perth tournaments. Both of them impressed me. This was around three years after I had given up playing competitive tennis as I believed that there was nothing more I could do in the sport as I had not made the toughest grade.
What I was forgetting back then was that I had not even scratched the surface of reaching my potential as a player. After all how many players at age 18 really know the game and all of the intricacies that go with it ? The issue back then in '86 and '87 however was that there were guys like Wilander, Chang and Becker winning Grand Slams at age 17 so at 18 most of us felt 'washed up' as tennis players if we were not regularly winning events. How the times have changed as the teenage era of winning Slams has disappeared from the radar completely and has been overtaken by a golden era of 'old boys' dominating the sport.
At age 21 however I was fit, hitting a reasonable ball and decided that playing a series of Money tournaments around France had merit. I had gained my desire back and after three years of coaching I felt that my knowledge had improved some what. Now I will go into the details of my European trip in more detail later however I wrote a chapter on my blog that I believe says it all as far as where I was mentally with my tennis even on my second attempt at trying to make some money from the sport.
The feeling of belonging on a tennis court with certain opponents I believe is one of the biggest factors in any level of tennis.
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