Hello,

From my point of view, every player is different and every journey is different… There is no single, ready-made road to follow to reach the very top level.

• Some start early, others later
• Some play a ton of tournaments, others very few
• Some work really hard from the beginning, others more moderately… (In the long run, you still have to work a lot anyway lol)
• Some…

As for us, we work a lot based on feel, and we’ve always been careful to keep the joy of playing intact.

Here are the very broad strokes of Elouan’s journey up to his 13th birthday.

Ages 3–6:

• Discovery, mini tennis

Ages 7–8:

• New club – New coach
• Training 1 to 2 times per week

Age 9:

• Training 1 to 2 times per week + one individual session
• “Galaxie” tournaments with green balls

Age 10:

• Training 3 to 4 times per week
• Tournaments with yellow balls (about one match per week on average)

Age 11:

• New club – New coach
• Training more and more often: 8 to 10 hours of tennis per week
• Regular competitive matches (about one match per week on average)
• First match with adults. (Worth noting: Elouan behaves very well on court, that’s why we let him play with adults.)

Age 12:

• Frequent training: 8 to 10 hours of tennis per week (Dedicated article here)
• Regular competitive matches: juniors / adults (about one match per week on average)

Age 13 (Elouan has just turned 13 at the time I’m writing this article):

• New club – Training in a self-taught way (Why self-taught? Article coming soon)
• Training almost every day.
• A bit of physical work (with a physio + lots of stretching)

His tennis level

Elouan has just turned 13 and is ranked 30. Roughly speaking, at national level that puts him in about the top 3% of players in his age group (13/14 years old). That’s pretty good, but it’s still a modest level compared with the very best in his category.

NB: A lot of people / coaches, etc. say that Elouan isn’t good enough and that he’ll never be a pro… It’s a bit annoying to keep hearing that same cliché (rarely backed up by anything more than “the best are ranked higher”). None of them know Elouan, none of them know what we do or how we work… In short, people don’t know anything and they don’t know us… At the beginning, it was hard listening to all that, but over time we’ve learned not to overthink those comments… In one ear, out the other… We don’t want to be champions at 13, we want to become champions at 23–25… That gives Elouan a nice margin (10–12 good years) to grow, work and progress AT HIS OWN PACE…

Come and see him at 23 and we’ll talk about his level again ^^