The Inspiring Story of a Junior Tennis Player – Aaron

When we established Towers Health & Racquets Club, one of our core aims was to improve junior participation in the wonderful sports of tennis and squash talent by focusing lots of effort and resource on junior coaching. Today’s youngsters are the Club and County Champions of the future for these great sports, and both sports help to develop mental and physical skills that are invaluable to youngsters throughout their lives.

We also had in the back of our minds, that we would love to play a small part in helping to develop some outstanding talent in one or both sports, and we are delighted to tell you about just such a story, that has been developing in Bedford in the shape of Aaron.

Aaron first picked up a tennis racquet at the age of 4, when he attended an early taster session at his local club. What was quickly apparent to his parents, Adi and Charlie, was that he rapidly became absorbed with it. He is an only child and would spend lots of time in the garden trying to hit a ball against the walls, whilst continually badgering his parents to let him have tennis lessons.

He signed up to the red sponge ball group and started to take 1-2-1 lessons before school twice a week at the age of 5 – he loved it! Over the next year or so he started to compete in competitions at red sponge ball level and it was obvious to anyone watching that he was fiercely competitive, with a will to win! He represented the County for the first time and was starting to do well in the local tournaments. Then, disaster struck …… Covid!

During the Covid lockdowns, Aaron’s Dad constructed a make-shift court on their driveway and he and Aaron would play every day. It gave both of them lots of enjoyment and some exercise! And Aaron started to improve even faster…..

After Covid, Aaron moved onto orange ball, winning his first tournament in Cambridge and in late 2020, at the age of 8, he entered and won an orange ball tournament in Stony Stratford. He liked the set-up there and was invited to join their competition squad. This involved two 150 minute group sessions every week, strength and conditioning, plus some 1-2-1 coaching and hitting with his Dad on top! A lot of tennis!! His standard continued to improve, and he had success winning the 9U Stony Club championships.

Aaron then started to play in some regional level events in late 2021 and in 2022 he won his first regional green ball tournament which earnt him a wild card into a national level tournament in Bolton, where he finished an impressive 12^th out of 32 of the top players in the country. He’s since gone on to play in a further six national level tournaments. This brought him to the attention of the national coaches who invited him to a training camp and pathway event, although he narrowly missed out on being selected for the national pathway programme.

In the last 18 months, now playing at yellow ball level, Aaron has been coached by Boglarka, here with us at Club Towers. The transition from green to yellow ball is always tricky and can lead to a dip in performance, but Aaron has shown great resilience to work hard at his game with Boglarka’s help and has made another big step up in the last 4 months. He entered his first international tournaments in Paris and Spain (at the Nadal Academy) in 2022/3, and then in early 2024 he won his first international event in the Netherlands, beating the 5^th ranked Swiss player in the process.

Aaron’s parents have obviously invested a lot of time and money into Aaron’s tennis and we asked his Dad about this. Adi said: “the drive to want to play tennis has always come from Aaron and he absolutely loves it – except sometimes when he loses! As long as he continues to want to play and progress, we are committed to supporting him as far as he can go”. 

We then asked Aaron what it is that he loves about tennis? He said: “I love the competing aspect and seeing what results all the hard work can lead to”. 

So where next in the short term? Aaron is going to play in more regional U12 tournaments through this year and hopes to qualify for the nationals again. He is regularly representing Bedfordshire at inter county events and enjoys the challenge of playing up an age group in the 14U team. In addition, he is aiming to do well in the Nadal Academy tournament in Spain in November, before moving onto U14 level next year and would like to see if he can qualify to play in some junior tennis europe events.

We are delighted to see such a talented and highly motivated tennis junior at the Club and doing so well and are happy to be able to have been able to support this over the last 18 months. We wish Aaron and his parents well in their journey and hope to be able to continue to help them along the way!

Aaron’s Junior Tennis Journey…… Key Milestones

Summer 2016 – Picked up a tennis racquet for the first time aged 4.

Summer 2017 – Played in his first red sponge ball competition.

March 2020 – Covid Lockdown – lots of practice at home.

September 2020 – Won first orange ball tournament in Cambridge.

Autumn 2020 – Joined competition squad in Stony Stratford

September 2021 – Became 9U Club Champion

March 2022 – Won first Regional Level tournament earing wildcard to Nationals.

April 2022 – Competed in first national level event in Bolton.

April 2022 – Invited to LTA Regional Training Camp

August 2022 – Entered first Ten-Pro International Tournament in France

September 2022 – Selected for Invite Only “top 16” LTA National Pathway Event.

November 2022 – moved coaching to Towers.

August 2023 – Competed in Ten-Pro International tournament in Switzerland.

November 2023 – Competed in Ten-Pro International tournament in Majorca (Rafa Nadal Academy).

February 2024 – Won first Ten-Pro international tournament in the Netherlands.

We have plenty more junior talent emerging within our coaching programme, and hope to be able to feature more stories over the coming months and years. Please do keep us in touch with anything they are doing outside of the Club.