In the holidays Greg and myself had the pleasure of taking 16 ITS and Academy players on the ITS Japan Tour.
This was an amazing tour with too many great experiences to list them all but a few of the highlights were
seeing the sumo wrestling team at Chuo University training with a professional sumo, going to Tokyo Disneyland, a trip to a Japanese temple to see all the amazing buildings and learning about the traditions and customs of the temple.
The tennis was fantastic including a huge eye opener seeing the Japanese players’ training intensity, dedication and fitness.We trained and played matches at Chuo University and were lucky enough to train with one uni player who had just been called up to the Japanese Davis Cup team!
The uni players work ethic, friendliness and great treatment toward our ITS kids was unbelievable and Ryuchi was such a nice bloke and looked after us so well.
The International Cup was a great tournament with Cooper playing some of the best tennis of his life to be one point away from winning the final.
Again the uni students were fantastic, adding a high level of player and pushing our ITS players to their limit.
There were some huge performances from most ITS and Academy players with special mention of Cooper, Jade, Avirat, Jock and Georgia.
Overall a really great tour with amazing experiences and a high level of training and match play each day.
It was great fun and a great life experience for both coaches and of course the players.
I really appreciated the opportunity and it was one of the highlights of my coaching career.
Leave a Reply