Background

Sebastian is now 12 years old and has already been playing tennis for 8 years, so is well on his way to maintaining the required quality time on court. Sebastian is supported by his mother and father and has an older brother of 17 yrs.

His mother is 5’8″, his father is 6’3″ and his brother is 6’4″ which indicates that Sebastian will also be tall, giving him a great advantage as a tennis player.

Sebastian has been with his main coach since age 4 and his coach has national and international experience, particularly in working with juniors, many of whom have now gone on to great things, including the current British No.1 Andy Murray.

Sebastian has acheived his current success levels with only 30 minutes per week personal one-to-one training! The majority of his peers notch up 2 or 3 hours personal coaching per week.

Sebastian has already been recognised for his talent; he was awarded a small grant by the local council for tennis achievement in 2012 and was awarded a special commendation for tennis success at a council-run awards ceremony that same year.

Due to our intentionally relaxed attitude and not wishing to overtrain Sebastian, he has only done a maximum of 2 tournaments per month, playing against players who compete in 4 or more per month. Sebastian still regularly wins.

Ideally Sebastian would have had more one-to-one training with his coach and increased the squads sessions at Southampton but unfortunately this has always been cost-prohibitive.

 

Current Position

Sebastian’s training has commenced for the year 2016. Sebastian is now training both before and after school several times a week to increase his ability to compete at a higher level.

His current rating doesn’t reflect his true level as it is based on how many tournaments he has played. Sebastian is currently 7.1 when in fact he is at the same level as a 6.2 or 6.1.

Current training clubs are Max Tennis at East Dorset Lawn Tennis Club with Brian McFadden and David Lloyd Southampton with Dave Ison.

Extra practice is done at two further locations in Poole. Increased funding would allow two sets of training in Sothampton per week and an increase from 30 minutes personal coaching to 2 hours per week.

Goal

At the moment Sebastian’s parents cover all costs of his tennis career which, as well as his coaching costs, include weekly 60-mile round trips to Southampton to train, weekly trips to his main training camp in Dorset, all accommodation, food and travel when competing away from home, racquets, restringing and his tennis shoes & clothes.

It all adds up to quite a sizeable amount. With additional funding Sebastian aims to travel internationally and compete in Tennis Europe 14U tournaments along with increased national tournament entries. He also wants to increase his personal training time, structured squad training and fitness training.

The Future

This year is make or break for Sebastian as he has to play tennis in Europe at least 3 times this year in order to gain a Tennis Europe rating.

He also has to travel in the UK much more than previously in order to play more challenging national players.

By doing these two things he will stay on the same curve for great success which he is currently on. Without achieving these two objectives this year he will lose ground which cannot be made up.

With your help he will realise his tennis dreams.