Does Mark Do Anything Besides Tennis?

Does Mark do anything besides tennis? 

That's a tricky question...really. So he watches tennis, he reads about tennis, he thinks about tennis and, in between, watches entertaining YouTube videos (some about tennis). 

Well, he also plays with his friends Tommy and Noah when he is not playing tennis. He plays ping pong too:) He spends time with Pepper, does school online, reads, does chores and eats. It seems that he is pretty content when we ask him if he wants to pick up another hobby, but we still are encouraging him to branch out.

One side note, not sure if mentioned before, he has been doing school online since January of 2022, starting in the middle of 7th grade. It's through the American Heritage School. He has a class online Monday-Thursday at 11ish, and Math whenever he schedules it in his day. He is able to regulate how much and when he does work, completes his assignments and tests on his own, and seems to be enjoying this flexibility. Three times a week he then starts tennis training right after lunch (a bit later on Tue) and is able to have two 2hour sessions. On Mondays, Fridays or Saturdays he plays practice matches or goes on court to do drills. On Tuesday mornings at 8:30 am, I drive him to Raleigh to have a fitness training with Quentin for an hour. He definitely needs to do more fitness/footwork and agility. Tournaments don't happen each weekend, but they do take up a lot of our time. 

Mark and I spend A LOT of time together--driving, hotel time, tournament time--we are not always talking either since Mark is happy as a clam just being quiet. My life has definitely changed since he started doing more tennis and is not at school for 6 hours. Driving to tennis, making lunches (unless he preps it before the 11 o'clock class), making sure he has a bunch of nutritious snacks available, driving back to his courts while he is having a break between the sessions, getting him water, etc., has really been taking up more of my time. I am still working on the attitude of "I am grateful to be spending so much time with my son”, as this is actually an intentional choice we have made. Failure to manage my time on my part is what is sometimes so frustrating to me...scheduling all personal appointments or errands around tennis training and driving is quite tricky. But that's my stuff to deal with.

A quick rundown of our summer tennis adventures! 

Mark and I got to go to a new location--West Virginia. It was so beautiful there in the middle of July! And so cool, not muggy or hot. I loved that place near the border of WV/VA. Mark got to play mixed doubles with a girl we didn't really know, and they got second place! 

Mark's partner's name was Emma Jakovenko--and we kind of randomly picked her because her last name sounded Ukrainian-haha. It turns out her dad is indeed second generation Ukrainian and her mom is Romanian:). All these international kids! 

One more cool thing was that this park with tennis courts is located exactly where the state line passes through between VA and WV. So it was funny that Mark pretty much was playing in a different state from his opponent. 

We found some time for a peaceful hike on Sunday morning. 

Brush Creek Falls. The trail was pretty straightforward but after a while overgrown with poison ivy, so we had to cut our "hike" short. 

The weekend after this tournament, Mark went to the amusement park with Robert, Katya and Alex. After he got home he started having horrible headache so we thought it was from too many roller coaster. Shortly, the headache transitioned into fever, chills, congestion and everything else. Basically, after three days Mark was pretty miserable...and he had a huge tournament to play starting Thursday (day 5 of him feeling sick). We had tested him for Covid four times and it was always negative. In fact, I took him in to see the doctor on Tuesday as he was feeling a lot of congestion in his ears (the doctor said it was close to getting an infection, but she'd rather work him out on his own). She said, if he is feeling up for it, he is fine to play tennis on Thursday. 

Well...kind of drugged up with cough medicine and Tylenol, Mark decided not to withdraw and hoped that with each day he would start feeling better. The reason was that it wasn't a simple tournament he didn't want to miss--it was ZONALS, the biggest TEAM competition of the year in their Southern section. This is the time when your usual rivals can be your team mates! And you cheer for them all, and you get a team coach who can actually coach you during the match (normally NOT allowed in tournaments). So yeah, Mark decided to stick it out and just be careful around other kids. 

With each day he was indeed feeling better and by Saturday was completely fine. He was not playing his best though, for sure. It's crazy how much sickness and lack of a pre-tournament training routine can change the outcome--Mark lost all of his singles matches. Nevertheless, he had so much fun! Paul Goode (Griffin's and Gavin's dad) was his coach. And their team won second place overall! 

Here you can see how they follow college format--once you are done with your own match, you can stand and watch the other matches finishing up on court. 

Here is the team--six girls and six boys. 

It was actually quite beneficial for him to be part of the team. 

Just a couple of days after Zonals was done, it was time to head down to Mobile! I know! Crazy August schedule and the fun part is that we get to do it again next year in 2023. 

We actually made a fun trip out of it! Katya had driven to Atlanta with Everett, so Robert, Alex, Mark and I drove to James and Michelle's house, stayed the night there, picked up Katya and then headed down south. Splitting up the drive helped a ton. And then I drove everyone to Pensacola, where we met up with Bridget! So Robert, Alex and Katya then were able to spend a few days with Tom, Bridget and the kids near Destin (but that's another post).

Mark and I headed to Mobile and spent a few gloriously hot and humid days there. 

This year Mark was playing 14s for the first time (he gets to do it again in 2023), it was all official with pictures and everything. 

Repping his Physical Therapy place-haha. 

Here is Mark with his friend Saahil, next to the Southern Section flag. It was nice to know the lay of the land this year after playing in Mobile for 12s. 

And here is Cooper, Mark's doubles partner whom he got randomly. Mark was unpaired as he wasn't sure he would get into singles, so we just didn't ask anyone in advance. Cooper had a very long first singles match and was cramping badly...so they had to withdraw from their first round of doubles. But in this tournament they had consolation doubles, so the boys had a great time playing a couple of matches the following day. 

Mark received three sportsmanship tokens during the tournament! That's pretty awesome! And for each token he was allowed to go to the Babolat prize table and spin the wheel... Every single time he got a tennis ball keychain-hahaha. 

Overall, Mark played very well! This is a high level tournament so every match is a tough one. Mark only won one match but learned a ton! 

Quick intermission to show you Mark and his Slinger. It's a ball machine that feeds you balls to practice, but Mark is not super keen on it anymore as he thinks it always hits with too much spin. I need him to like it though!!! 

Random pictures from my phone... nutrition between matches... We always have to know what is nearby as sometimes you get just a little over an hour to hydrate and eat. Panera Bread is probably our standard (chicken noodle soup for some sodium;), Harris Teeter or Publix sushi is also great and light. Smoothies are ok, but we have to tell them no sugar added. 

Here is Mark at his fitness session with Quentin. 

And this is kind of cool too...Mark's physical trainer works and lives in our area, but he also travels all over the world to be a physical trainer for the top ATP players. Sometimes we see him on TV! Like on this picture, it's our PT Jon with Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open. 

And finally! Mark's first day of 8th grade! Picture taken probably in the evening because that's the type of stuff you can do when your school is online.

And so that's the not so short update on what Mark has been up to, guided by pictures. I am sure there is a lot more to his life than this, but I simply fail to take pictures of those happenings:)).

Bye for now!

Lyana.