2014 European tour re-cap – part 2

The second half of my European tour saw me head to the grass courts. After Paris I was unable to practice or compete. My abdominal was very sore and giving me issues. I had my fingers cross there was enough time for me to recover before Roehamton and Wimbledon, two tournaments that I was very much looking forward to.
To rest my abdominal I went to the beautiful island of Gernesy, England for 2 weeks. I stayed with family friends who were amazing to me. I couldn’t have asked for anything more. I didn’t do much at all. I had a holiday, in other words.
After my 2 weeks rest, I headed to London were I began my grass court preparation. It took a couple of days to get back into it, mainly because I had was making some slight changes to my serve technique to try and help my abdominal. A couple days out from the Roehamton I started playing practice sets again to try and get match ready, but honestly I just felt like I hadn’t played enough heading into my first round match. Grass is one of those surfaces that you need to train on to really feel comfortable, one because there are so few tournaments on grass during the year and two it plays very different to any other surface. I won my first match in a tight 3 setter, which I was happy with, as it was my first match on the grass. Second round, I played a very consistent opponent that didn’t give me much. I lost 6-3 in the third set. I was just happy I didn’t have my abdominal pain, it was just tight and stiff.
Next up was Wimbledon. The draw came out and they had me playing on Saturday which I was happy about because if I won my first one I would have a couple days off before my next round. Saturday came around and it was a cold, rainy day at Wimbledon. Play went on and off all day and eventually my match got postponed.
As the middle Sunday is a traditional rest day at Wimbledon, I came back on Monday! Ready and pumped up, I came out firing and won my first round 6-2 7-6. It wasn’t my best match, but I was happy that I got through. My second round was going to be a tough one as my opponent had a big game and could hurt you from anywhere on the court. I went down 6-4 7-6. I was down the whole match until 5-4 in the second, he was serving for the match but I managed to finally break him and turned it around giving myself 2 set points later that set, but was not able to take advantage of them. I also made it to the second round of the doubles draw with fellow Australian Marc Polmans.
I’m so happy that I had the privileged and experience to play Junior Wimbledon. I’m positive with the hard work I’m putting in now, I’ll be back soon! For now, see you Wimbledon.
Harry Wimbledon 2014

Harry Wimbledon 2014

Written by: Harry Bourchier
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2014 European tour re-cap – part 1

In May, I set off on a eight week trip from Tassie to tackle the European summer! I had been preparing for this tour for 2 months with the help of my coach Simon Youl. I felt great going into the tour as I had worked on my strength and fitness and felt like I had fully recovered from my abdominal injury that I had been dealing with the prior few months.
The first stop was Milan. Milan is the lead in tournament for the Junior French Open. I won my first match in an epic three set match. I was down 5-2 in the 3rd, but managed to get back on track and win 7-5 in the third.  I was very happy with this win as it was my first match back. I also played doubles in this tournament which looking back may have not been the right choice. My partner and I won a couple of rounds. I also won my next singles match without much pain on the abdominal but then in my 3rd round match I was in some bad pain and mentally it was quite tough knowing that the injury was back. I played most of the match was forced to pull out due to the injury.
At this stage I had to look a the bigger picture which was get my self ready for the Junior Grand Slams. I was 10 days out from Paris and around 7 weeks from Wimbledon. In my head I knew I would be much more confident on the grass because it suit my game. So I had to make the choice whether to pull the pin on Paris and get ready for grass or try to play Paris but could possibly make the injury worst. I ended up deciding that I would play the French Open.
I prepared for the french Open by going to Munich, Germany where they have an Australian training base. I didn’t serve just keep up my physical work. I spend around a week their training with another injured German professional tennis player Cedrik Stebe. After the week I headed off to Paris a couple days before the French Open to get ready. My abdominal still felt unstable. Two days out from the tournament I started to rolled my serve over again and it felt fine, good enough to play in practice. The day before my first round match I decided to play a set and half at highest intensity. Its fair to say I pulled up very sore in the abdominal area.
The morning of my first match I was still sore and stiff, I warmed up as usual, got a massage and the abdominal taped up. I went out onto the match court with the mentally that I would give everything. I won the toss! This was the first time I had elected to receive, I always open with my serve. I ended up losing in a close straight setter 6-3 6-4. I had count less break points on his serve which I was able to take advantage off. I was only broken once in the first and second sets which was quite good considering. All in all it was a frustrating couple of weeks.This marked the end of the clay season.
I would really like to thank my coach in Tassie Simon Youl for the countless hour he spent with me grinding on the clay at home before I left. Also Rob Lynch for letting us use his clay court in Hobart.
Harry French Open 2014

Harry French Open 2014

Written by: Harry Bourchier

Harry wins his first European match!

Hello Everyone!

I’ve made my way to Napoli, Italy with the team for the F6 future! It was six long hours in the car from the Italian training base to get here. Today I played my first European tournament of the year and won 6/3 6/4! I play my second round of qualifying tomorrow. I have had strong physical training while I have been in Europe. I believe this physical training has improved my game both physically and mentally, thanks to my coach Liam Smith. Liam has been invaluable for me over couse of the year. I really believe I can have some great results with the training, preparation and team I have around me and because of this I’m in a clear and strong space. I look forward to geting some great results!

Stay tuned!

A big shout out to my older sister Ella who with her tennis team from UNLV (University of Nevada Las Vegas) won the Mountain Conference Championships.  The team defeated San Diago State 4-1 in the conference final which was played at Air Force, in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Ella who is in her last season as senior at UNLV will now go on to play in the NCAA tournament which will start in 2 weeks.

Goodluck Ella!

Ella in action at the Mountain West Conference Championships

Ella in action at the Mountain West Conference Championships

Italian training

I’m here just outside of Pisa, Italy at the Italian Federation training base. Similar to AIS back home in Australia. It is an awesome place to train, no destination around because its in between to towns near the beach. You can just dig deep and get some solid work done on and off the court, in the gym, running track and in the school books. I’m half way through this little 2 week Italian training block and my body is holding up nicely. It’s Sunday here today so we might go for a drive around and see some tourist attractions. Last night we went into the city of Pisa and had an amazing pizza at one of many pizzerias. We also had a good look at the leaning tower of Pisa and some of the city. (Photo below)

My usual day consists of standing up at 7:30 heading down to the food cafeteria. We normally start hitting tennis balls at 9 so have to do all warm up and injury prevention work beforehand. We arrive in the gym at around 8:20 to begin all this. We have some very tough physical session on the clay courts here. We finish up on the court around 11:30 if we’re lucky then we head into the gym and do some strength work which takes around an hour – hour and half. I’m pretty tired but this stage so we come back to the room shower up clean up get ready for the afternoon. Head to lunch then after lunch we get about 2 hours school work done. After we are back on the courts around 3:30 for an on court session which is followed by a running track session doing sled running or 400m work outs. Now I start to feel my legs! It is very convenient that we are only 5 mins away from the beach, we are able to do some recovery work and come back to have a 30 min stretching session then if we have more school work this would be the time. Dinner is usually quite late over here around 8-9 pm so this is when we whined things down and start chilling out for the next day.
A typical day consists of:

Wake up 7:30
Warm up rehab work 8:20
Hitting on court  9
Gym 11:45
Lunch 1-1:30
School 1:30-2
Hitting on court 3:30-4
Running session 5:30-6
Beach recover  6:30
Catch up time 7
Dinner 8-9
Chill out time

Leaning Tower of Pisa, Italy

Leaning Tower of Pisa, Italy