The Inaugural Triangular Trophy & Training Camp at Heron Tennis Centre, featured Junior players from TC Steinbach (Frankfurt), Set Point Academy (Surrey) and Heron Tennis, Sunday 26 July - Saturday 1 August 2009.
The weeklong event involved training and match-play. The players were kindly accommodated at the homes of host families from Heron.
TC Steinbach's players flew to England with their Head Coach, Laurence Matthews, a former professional player and top 10 British senior player. Set Point Academy's players travelled down from Surrey with Jon Askey, Set Point Academy's Assistant Coach.
The training week, designed by Gordon Birt (Heron's International Coaching Consultant), involved early morning debriefing before the physical warm-up exercises. This was followed by intensive tactical and technical coaching drills until lunch time. The drills were based on the methods of the legendry Australian coach Harry Homan. The afternoon sessions featured match play. There was circuit training and beach running on a few of the days, which comepletely finished off some of the players after a day of 5 hours plus of tennis and fitness in some of their cases!
There were also some social events arranged such as the 'welcome dinner' at the Port & Starboard Fish & Chip restaurant, a trip to the circus and beach tennis matches and football on Great Western Beach, courtesy of Anton Roberts (Soundworx) and Reef Surf Academy.
The week reached it's grand finale on Saturday 1st August with the Triangular Trophy being played for the first time. The three teams played 4 rounds of singles and doubles. The Trophy was won by the Heron Team by a narrow margin of 2 points from Set Point Academy, who finished 2 points above TC Steinbach in 3rd place. A Pro-Am doubles event was also played and featured the pros from the three clubs including Matt Trudgeon and Steve Askey (Heron), Laurence Matthews (TC Steinbach), Jon Askey (Set Point Academy) as well as two of Heron's leading juniors, Sam Moses and Tom Brady. Sam and Tom will actually be flying to Frankfurt later this month where they will compete in German Junior events whilst basing at TC Steinbach and training on their clay courts.
After Matthew Oddy, Heron's team captain, had been presented with the Triangular Trophy, Steven Askey, one of the organisers of the week, said:
"It's been a great first week of this event. Most of the players have probably never played so much tennis in one week. They have had some serious on court training and then some fun, social time off court. The Beach Tennis and football went especially well. It has been so nice seeing the 3 sets of players become friends, which is one of the beauties of our sport. The event would not have been possible if Gordon, Laurence, Matt and myself were not such good friends! I'm sure they are all looking forwards to next year's event. It is hoped next year's event will be combined with a trip to train and compete in Germany in 2010. Finally, I would just like to say again how grateful we are to the host families."