To all our young tennis association members who might be at a point in their life that they might be heading to university, I would highly recommend keeping practising your tennis as I believe it’s a lifelong skill that you should not waste. University Tennis life at either the competitive level or recreational level could be one of the most rewarding and unforgettable experiences that could highly add to your university life. In this article, I will recount my experiences of playing tennis at various universities and tell you what to expect from that experience.
In my university life in both bachelor’s and master’s programmes, I found ways to play tennis at and for the universities. Though my tennis life at university had to be put on hold for a year and a half due to me dislocating my dominant shoulder during a tennis match, I still managed to have fulfilling tennis career over my varsity life. Remember kids, prevention of sports injuries is more important than finding a cure after the fact. I represented my first university in Singapore (SIM), played recreational tennis at UK (University of Birmingham), represented the university in Adelaide (University of Adelaide), and finally represented the university in Melbourne (University of Melbourne).
Starting Off…
Firstly, congratulations on getting into university. From experience, I know that that can be a gruelling trial that seems almost impossible at times depending on the calibre of the university and its corresponding programme. Once you get to the new country you will quickly get busy with sorting out your academic stuff at orientation at the aptly named “O-week”. It is highly recommended to not skip O-week as you will be able to get a taste of university life and sign up for various academic and extracurricular clubs that will make up an important part of your university life. This event is also very important since you could get to meet the tennis club for the first time and sign up for trials so that you can be sorted into the right team.
Trials or try-outs are highly important. Mainly as you would not be able to enter a good tennis club at the university without one, and if you miss it, especially for competitive players, this could result in not being able to play competitive tennis for in some cases one semester or in worst cases the whole academic year. There are ways to get around this by finding private tennis clubs to join and then do a try-out over there. However, those clubs tend to be sometimes far-away from campus and could be more expensive to join as well. Since you are a new immigrant to the country and not have local or international tennis accolades, this might not help your case to get into a competitive group easily.
The try-outs are carried out in the following way. There will be many new students who will come and sign up on a registration form with the co-ordinators there. On the form, they might have you specify whether you want to play competitive, recreational, or both. After that, they will call out your name eventually and you will be made to just hit some balls with another random player who is also there to try-out. They will look at your mental and physical ability and the way you handle various shots. Then, some clubs might make you do some group drills with their tennis coach. After that, they will let you know that the trial has concluded and will notify you about your placement.
The important thing is to not worry too much about the try-out. If you tense up too much by overthinking you might not be able to perform to the best of your ability. The coaches and senior players who are watching you play will notice this and will note this as this is how you handle stress on the court. You must be able to be a player who can handle stress well while playing as while you are representing the tennis team in various tournaments you will be put in situations where winning your match could be whether the team wins against the opposition in terms of total points. Make sure you don’t have too much to eat for breakfast before the try-outs as well, better stick to staple foods like some cereal and a banana.
In about a week or so you will get an email from the tennis club and provide you with your placement. Sometimes depending on the number of applicants, you might not be able to get any competitive placements for that round which is sadly the case in some instances. But the silver lining is that you are already in the tennis club’s system and will consider you if something opens up.
Competitive & Recreational Programmes
On a side note, I would like to explain the various competitive and recreational teams that you can participate at university. These programmes can differ from university to university but most of them have both a recreational and competitive side.
Recreational tennis could be a hit with many other players, and you take turns to play and then socialise with other members while waiting. Some tennis clubs also have a recreational tournament whereby you will be put into a small team and will play some matches against other teams every week till the end of the semester. To allow for both boys and girls to play in limited courts and timings, there might be teams with co-ed players. This is a good time to learn how to play mixed doubles for those who are interested.
Competitive tennis has two main events. Representing the university to play against other tennis clubs in the region in a league – this might last 6-8 months a year. Then there is the prestigious event whereby you will be representing the university to play against other universities in the region in an Olympics-like-event that is hosted by different universities – this might last 1 – 2 weeks every year.
The League tournament is one that I love the most as you can see how you improve throughout the tournament while juggling your academic life. This is a very good opportunity to teach you how to keep tennis in your life while being busy with work after finishing university. Depending on the country and the tennis scene over there they could have multiple leagues based on skill level. I will use my time in Melbourne as an example to illustrate this since it is the one that I found this kind of event to be the most comprehensive one.
In Australia, they call these leagues Pennant. They have pennants from level 11 to level 1, whereby 11 being the weakest and 1 being professional tennis level. The university will be creating teams to compete with teams created by other tennis clubs around the region. These teams will compete in a regional bracket and then will compete with winners from other regions to go to the top. In my experience, I have managed to bring my teams to the semi-finals in both years of my master’s programme – pennant 10 and pennant 8 respectively. Could have played for a higher division but since I was doing a very difficult master’s programme I felt that I could not realistically invest more time for tennis than at the levels I had chosen – it was a good compromise.
This league experience can be rewarding in many ways. That includes several benefits. Such as having a tournament every week (usually on weekends) pushes you to train hard every week. Moreover, being a part of a team allows you to socialise with both international students and locals and make close friends. It also helps you to socialise with many other clubs in the region and gives you a way to network with them so that once you finish university and find work in that country you can continue to play competitive tennis at one of those private tennis clubs (since most universities will not allow you to keep being a university tennis club member once you have graduated though some do).
Though the league tennis is like semi-serious as the university will not pressure you to win, the inter-university games are much more serious as the university wants the teams that they choose to win for the university. If you manage to go watch some matches at these games you might even find that some players at your age are aiming to go pro or semi-pro at tennis. I highly recommend that you try-out for the inter-university games though there is not a very high chance for you to play at that level. This is one of the few chances you will get to play against tennis players of that calibre.
Recommendations
In your first year at university and at the tennis club it is highly recommended to invest some time to socialise and network in the tennis club. Your goal should be to get to know senior players, the coaches, the executive committee (exco), and new players such as yourself. This would make your tennis life in this foreign country so much easier and fulfilling. This would allow you to find players to have a regular hit together or even make teams play recreational tournaments. By knowing the seniors and administration, it will help you when you have issues such as finding tennis courts to hit in peak periods and also to even get coaching lessons when needed.
To get the best out of the whole tennis experience, remember to exercise, eat, and sleep well. You should have a tennis training, cardio and gym schedule that you follow through with and if you have issue sorting one out in the beginning do ask your peers and seniors for tips to set up one. You might find hard doing a rigorous training schedule while studying hard, and that is perfectly fine to feel overwhelmed at times due to stress. It is how you manage that stress that counts. Follow the adage of when the going gets tough, the tough get going. In order to do that, ask for help. The best is to create study, training, running, tennis buddy groups. By having this system, it allows you to help each other be accountable to your goals.
By being in a tennis club at university it allows you to be fit, network, and most importantly make the best use of and hone the tennis skills that you have acquired since you were a kid. Not only that, by playing tennis at university it could be the cure to one of the worst sickness of studying abroad, which is homesickness brought about by culture-shock. This is the best ways that I have found to get to know locals in that country and fight against loneliness. As when playing a sport, the locals don’t look at your skin colour, religion, or other immutable characteristics. They look at your skills first and foremost and whether you can be a team player.
I implore all our young tennis members who are thinking of going to university to not stop playing tennis and not waste all the hours that you invested into the game while playing here at our tennis centre (the Tennis Association of Maldives). Use those skills to add to your university life abroad to be fit, network, and to have a good time. All in all, the varsity tennis experience hopefully is a dream come true for you as it was for me. Go kick some ass and know that, time management is the key to have a fulfilling tennis life adjacent to graduating with good grades in your programme. Use tennis so that you leave university after having a multifaceted and unforgettable experience.