Tennis for me started at a really young age,(not that this shows in my playing ability!)

I started playing at around 4 years old at a local club some of you may know, Hoddesdon.

It was at a tennis camp, that was originally booked for my brother, but I tagged along for the journey. After day 1 I was completely hooked. I loved the fact that tennis was all about yourself and there was no team mates to rely on, it was purely an individual sport.

The coaches at the time were absolutely amazing, they made me love the sport even more and the people I met I have stayed friends with even to this day!

I stayed playing at Hoddesdon having a group lesson a week and a private lesson with a coach called Luke. Luke was a brilliant coach, he pushed to make me better but also kept the element of fun in tennis, which from a very young age i realised that this sport was all about having fun and enjoying it...mostly.

The standard of tennis I played never got much higher than an average club player, playing grade 5 LTA tournaments and local junior leagues. I was really enjoying competing and getting better until I got to an age where my emotions got the better of me; I was extremely harsh on myself for every mistake, and very angry at the end of matches. Typical teenager really!

This put me off competing but I continued to have lessons with Luke as I enjoyed them so much, until he told me was stopping tennis coaching. I was so upset but he happened to be friends with Harry so he set me on my way to Broxbourne! I left Hoddesdon at 13 and joined Broxbourne. I started a regular group which Dom ran and my love for the sport came back and grew even more than before. The atmosphere and environment of Broxbourne was unreal.

Harry, Dom and Nicole were the coaches when I joined and they made playing so enjoyable.

Fast forward a year I was introduced to Nicole where she become my private coach, having regular weekly lessons and falling back in love with competing. I had slightly calmed down so competing was back to being fun and just trying to get better.

I joined the men's 3rd team and was competing regularly and loving every second of it. Playing for a men's team at the age of 14/15 was a dream and it was all I wanted from tennis.

It was then during school DofE I asked Harry to volunteer and help out with the younger kids lessons. He said yes and that starts the story of how I started working here at BTA. But that's for a different day on a different blog!