Dunlop Camp at IMG

Mark had an amazing opportunity this fall to spend a week at a world famous tennis academy in Florida called IMG Academy. Dunlop is the main sponsor of the academy and so they have a special privilege to host a tennis camp for the Dunlop junior players. Mark was one of the lucky ones who got invited to go and train with some of the Dunlop coaches and junior players from all over the world. They usually have one in Europe for the European juniors and then one in the US for everyone else.

He and I flew to Sarasota, FL with Connor, his friend who also was invited as a Dunlop player.

 I was the designated adult to make sure the boys make it to their dorms and get registered before they are left alone for a week. It was pouring rain on the day that I had to drop them off so they got kind of soaked! 

At the campus store and wherever they went, people kept asking if they were brothers! It was funny! 

After I made sure the boys are set and found their dorm, I left them to have a pleasant two day vacation of my own. I stayed an extra day in the area to chill, take beach walks and watch the boys for just a bit. 

All expenses were paid for Mark--all the training, food and lodging. It was FUN! Mark said that they trained hard, but it was not too different from what they do at his usual place with Cameron. 

We got to talk to Mark every day. It was fun for him to stay a week away from home and be independent.

I also took the time to walk around campus and see this Hall of Fame and read about Nick Nollietieri, the founder of the academy, who passed away not too long ago. He was the one who trained Sharapova and Agassi. 

A few of the famous IMG graduates right here. 

And Nick Bollettieri statue with the draws poster of Eddie Herr tournament from the previous year. IMG academy hosts Eddie Herr tournament during Thanksgiving time each year. In the upcoming 2024 year they will change the name of the tournament to the IMG Academy International Tennis Championships. We'll see...maybe Mark will be able to get into it next year. 

I stopped by campus the following day just to check up on the boys. Snapped this picture to show that they are still doing well. 

Love all these Dunlop bags! 

I spent a lot of time outside, enjoying the peace and quiet on the beach. 

 And then I flew home. 

A few days later, Connor’s mom came to Florida. 

On the last day of training, she was able to snap a few pictures of the boys. 

Here they are taking a ride back from the courts to the dorms. It's like a shuttle and you can hop on and hop off if you are lucky...it's a bit of a walk especially after your legs feel like noodles after practice. 

Here is a group pictures of these kids. All of them are sponsored by Dunlop--all from non-European region. Mark said they even had kids from Japan. 

Mark, the Dunlop player. 

Dunlop did take good care of Mark and made him feel super special by offering him a contract with so much free stuff, plus this camp. This will definitely be something he will always remember!

 

Lyana.

Mark Gets His First Sponsor!

So Mark is growing up.... as of this spring he received his first sponsorship from Dunlop for a year! 

Since summer of 2020, he has been receiving 50 percent discounts on everything for Dunlop, but not official free Dunlop equipment. This time, as they were adding more kids to Team Dunlop, Mark qualified for a year of full sponsorship--four rackets, a reel of strings, a bag, grips and a bunch of other things for free. It was quite an exciting time at our house as it is VERY cool in the tennis world to get FULL sponsorship at this age. 

He signed an official agreement and everything! 

His awesome stuff came as he switched rackets from yellow to red to give himself more precision. He also went to a smaller head racket, which is a “big boy racket” stuff. 

Thank you, Dunlop for supporting Mark! #TeamDunlop😁

    

Mark Winter Happenings 2022

And finally it was Mark’s turn to go for an exam at Bovernizer and Baker Orthodontics! To be honest, he doesn’t truly need braces but for the sake of his future teeth health, we decided to get them put on. He was not super thrilled but at least it’s only for about a year! He didn’t get his braces on till the end of January, so no pictures of that yet. 

Mark is still a Team Dunlop Player. He got a new Dunlop sweatshirt, finally (as he wore his gray one to death). Tennis still takes up the majority of his time. 

In early December, Mark and Daniel played a tournament in Florence and won it in doubles! Mark actually did pretty well in singles as well in that tournament. 

Daniel is a friend tennis player, whose parents are from Belarus. I still speak English when I talk to his dad though.

And also Carolyn and Breanna won first place in Girls doubles--they all are friends. 

Moreover, Mark and Carolyn played MIXED doubles and got second place! They had lots of fun! Carolyn is a friend from Mark’s third grade:). 

The tournament was held in Florence, SC and we were staying right in downtown which was decorated for Christmas. Mark is funny--one side of him is so goofy and he wants to do silly things like this, but the other side is telling him to be “cool” now and grown up-hahaha. 

Then! Mark and I flew to Miami for Jr. Orange Bowl tournament. I can’t believe we actually did that! They reduced the size of the qualifying draw and instead of 128 were taking only 64 kids. Mark was on the alternates list, but so close to getting in that we decided to do it! We flew in the day before the qualifying matches started, staying in Coral Gables. That afternoon, Mark got to hit at Biscayne Bay with Cameron, his tennis coach, who traveled to FL to support four of his players. 

Mark also warmed up with Cameron in the morning before the matches...mind you, still not knowing if he would make it into the draw. 

Happy sweaty face, a screenshot of my phone. 

Jr. Orange Bowl is a pretty big deal as it’s an international tournament for the best tennis players in the world. Because of Mark’s birthday, though, he is able to play it this year (2022) for the last time although he is not technically 14 even. Anyone playing it next year has to be 14 on Dec 31, and Mark will be 15 and three days... It really stinks as he would be taller, stronger and better by then for sure. 

And, of course, the site of the tournament is Crandon Park which is iconic as they used to play Miami Open here.

For dinner we went to THE MOST expensive place we have ever been to. We kind of got roped into it as we were trying to feel a part of a team, but sheesh...it was a bit much. SO GOOD though! The place is called Komodo. Maybe we are not cut out for this fancy tennis world...

So! In the morning of the qualifying rounds, we were at the site bright and early, signing in to be an onsite alternate. We stood in a line of at least 50 kids, but what mattered is where you were already on the alternates list irregardless of the line. We didn’t have to wait too long, actually. About an hour after the matches started, Mark got called out to play a match against a boy from the Boston area. The boy was a lot higher in UTR than Mark, but Mark was playing great! In fact, Mark was able to pull him to the third set but lost in that tiebreak. It was tough...

Super sad especially being so close to winning... It’s hard to smile after a bitter loss, but that’s what you have to do. Fail to win, accept it, decide to keep working harder, brush up and get up to keep moving forward. 

We switched our plane tickets super quickly and were able to get on a plane back to RDU that evening. It all worked out, just not the way we hoped for! Now we just have to help Mark get to his next goal of playing Orange Bowl for 15-18 year olds. 

Mark is breaking strings every two or three days... He has four rackets now so Robert is stringing them a lot. We go through reels and reels of strings (each reel can string around 18 rackets and each reel is about $270). At least we are saving money by owning the stringer as each time it would be at least $15 for stringing a racket. Mark is still learning how to do it correctly. 

Mark is also still learning how to not stick rubber chickens onto the ceiling;). 

Oh yes, and Mark has a group of friends from church that he hangs out with periodically. He is closer with some than others, and most of the time they have fun. This is a picture of them all going ice skating before Christmas. 

And that’s the update about Mark who is almost 14 years old! 

Lyana.

 

Advantage Mark

This post is about Mark and his favorite sport. He has great passion for tennis--for the game, for hard work, for competing and for the fun of it all. 

When on March 16th everything shut down in our area, including his tennis academy, Mark started to look for different ways to stay active. It was hard. Most tennis courts were closed (although some private clubs stayed open) and all Mark had was his tennis wall. 

With school being on and off even virtual for about three weeks, Mark found comfort in hours and hours of hitting the ball against the garage wall, learning how to do freestyle tennis and lots and lots of tricks. 

In fact, sometimes after three weeks of the lockdown, we even set up an Instagram account for Mark’s tennis (I know!! It was my idea, and I am the one against social media for kids this young!!) that Katya and I manage. It’s been a great success actually and created so many fun opportunities for Mark as well connections and support from all over the world through the international tennis community. He has over 800 followers now, six months later, which is amazing! 

Mark managed to hit with a few friends a couple of times a week once some more courts in Cary were opened. Although he was doing a lot of fitness and footwork drills on his own, actual tennis playing was so refreshing. Our Apex courts opened on May 1st (a couple of days after I spoke with the mayor of Apex asking why our courts are still closed although Cary were opened:)). 

Mark did a lot of serve practices and hitting with me. We all were waiting for the Cary Tennis Park training to reopen. Tournaments were starting to pop up in June, which was a good sign.

Finally, middle of June, CTP training restarted! It was a very exciting day for Mark! No one cared that they had to wear masks to get to the court or use sanitizer and be in small groups. The kids were just so happy to be on court and see each other! They had a three months break from tennis training and that was hard. This is Mark on the day of his first day back at CTP, beaming.

He wanted to play a tournament as soon as possible, so on Father’s Day weekend, we went to Snow Hill for a lower level (L4) tournament where he played up with 14U. It was a fun tournament and he did well! 

Once again, some things were very different in the tournament format. The kids had to register with Match app and check in online, wait in the car until their court was announced, and not handshakes at the end--just the touch of the tennis rackets. They also had no benches and had one assigned player to switch the score.

Mark figured a second use for his cooler--use it as a seat during his changeovers. 

Training continued through July and the heat. Mark started to experiment with different strings and realized that he needs to have more durable ones or he would be restringing his every week or two. We also bought a used stringer and now are able to string his rackets (takes forever right now, but he will learn)! Here is a picture after one of his practices...and with broken strings. 

Here is the stringer. And Mark’s tennis wall in the background. 

As a side note, at the end of June, I tore my ACL playing a tennis match. I opted for a non-surgical route and am doing lots and lots of PT. It also meant that I couldn’t quite hit with Mark, or warm up before matches, but that’s ok. I can still feed him balls and do drills. He is most understanding of my injury because he knows how much I love tennis and how much I wish to be able to feel 100 percent again. 

One ultra exciting thing that happened to Mark after opening his IG account was participating in the Dunlop Challenge where he had to come up with a creative video of knocking down the empty tennis ball can with a lid. He had a great time building “an obstacle course”, posting it and actually being one of the five winners of 96 cans of Dunlop tennis balls!!! That’s four boxes!! Not all of them are pictured here. It was such a fun experience for ALL of us (imagine seeing huge boxes with tennis balls on your porch).

At the end of July, I took Mark to a big tournament in Asheville. It was a great tournament for Mark and he got to the quarter-finals before losing to the number 2 seed. He got 6th place over all, which is still great! 

It was time for Mark to start looking for a standard weight racket (he has been playing with a lite version for a year). It’s a fun process as he had to try a few different ones. Rackets are not cheap, so it’s important to be sure of your choice before purchasing them (and you need at least two). 

Mark continued to get together with friends and social distancing while resting. 

One great news for Mark was that in August he was accepted to the next (and highest) level of Academy, called Select. It was a tough road to get there as much was hoping to move up in spring after playing some big tournaments, but that didn’t happen. In any case, moving up to Select was a big deal for him as he continues to work hard in his group drills as well as his private coach Steve.

Finally, at the end of August, Mark made his choice about the new racket! We bought it at Bryan’s Tennis, a great tennis store in Raleigh. And Mark decided to go with the new Dunlop racket! FX500! 

For these kids, getting a new racket is like getting a new toy. So exciting! 

A month later, Mark got in touch with Dunlop (because they have been following him on Instagram and because he picked their new racket) and asked what are they looking for in junior players who want to be part of their team (Team Dunlop). They got back to him right away and gave us a code for 50% off anything on their website plus saying they will send a few free items to him. It was exciting!!! We ordered a third racket for Mark and a new racket bag which matches his racket. He has been wanting one for a while, and they are usually not cheap, so this was a perfect opportunity! 

So that’s how much excitement is happening in Mark’s tennis world! We must have hundreds of pictures and videos of Mark playing tennis, doing drills and practicing on and off the court. Just as an update, he is now #12 in North Carolina, #86 in Southern section and #553 in Nationals. This next year will be his year to be an “old 12 year old” so he should be playing a bunch of higher level tournaments in 12U age group. In January, the whole ranking system in the US is changing for junior players as they will be all put on a national ranking system and go away from the sectional and state play. It will be interesting! 

Lots of work ahead of this young man;).