The second blog of our Annual Players series features Rachel Byrne from Ireland, Banu Malak Selvy from Turkey and Stella Vujosevic-Richardson from the USA. All three girls are 15 and train together as part of our 16 and Under age group.

Rachel and Stella stay with the same Spanish host family, who brings them every morning for training and picks them up after their afternoon session is over. Banu lives with her family here in Castelldefels. The girls have lunches at our club’s restaurant, which is always a great opportunity to unwind with their academy friends as well as share stories and experiences with other academy players and coaches.

For Stella the greatest advantages of being a full-time player at our tennis academy are being able to train with a large variety of players from all over the world competitively and to be able to work hard every day in an environment filled with great coaches, close friends, and skilled fitness coaches.

According to Rachel, the greatest advantages of being a full time player at BTA are that she is able to train every day in a competitive environment and with all the facilities needed to train in one place, also with the support of the committed coaches and other players. What she finds sometimes challenging is being away from family and friends at home.

Banu views it in a similar way: ‘the greatest advantages of being in BTA are that we are able to improve and train as much as possible, we are also able to train with people they are serious at tennis and want to be professionals. The greatest challenges are that we have to be away from home and our families.’

The girls emphasise the importance of a professional environment as well as the support they get from both coaches and other academy players. For us it is one of the priorities to have an academy where players can feel like being a part of a ‘tennis family’ with friends and coaches they can speak to on a daily basis. Some of them like Rachel and Stella are here away from their families, so it is especially important for us to be there for them when they need us.

All three girls study online and combine their online school work with full-time training at our academy. When asked about challenges they face, Stella points out that it is sometimes difficult for her to manage the work load of tennis and school. Tackling such a demanding schedule requires a lot of discipline and skillful planning. We truly believe that it can contribute to the development of players’ organisational skills as well as efficient time management.

Overall, for us as an academy it is great to see our players hanging out together every day and supporting each other on and off the tennis court.