Anton's pictures of Antalya, Turkey

Pictures taken from the resorts in Antalya, Turkey. I did my own washing as it was 20 euros to do a load of washing.

Talking Turkey

Hi, my name is Anton Bettink. Thanks to TNR I have been given this opportunity to write this blog. I want to keep the Northern Region updated of what I am doing and how my tennis is going. 

In February I joined Marcel Vos, Marcus Daniel and Michael Venus in Antalya, Turkey, to play ITF futures tournaments on hard and clay surfaces.  For the first 2 weeks I trained with them before they went to the Davis cup in Uzbekistan. I stayed on to play in the tournaments having had some great wins and some tough losses, my best win was against a Polish player ranked 724 in the world and also getting into the main draw of one of the tournaments.

The tennis in Europe is a lot stronger than I have experienced. It has been difficult with the language of the locals and expensive to leave the resorts where the tournaments were held so didn't do any sightseeing. I did meet lots of great players form Sweden, Poland and South Africa and keep in regular contact with them, I even met up with Miles Bugby who I met last year in America. Miles was trained as a junior by TNR CEO David Frank. Small world! 

Having just arrived last week in Holland I will be training at Henk Van Hulst Academy. I am staying with a family in Eindhoven, they have 2 children around my age, one also trains at the tennis academy. Eindhoven is in the south of Holland and is one of the oldest cities. Each day we get up very early and catch a train and then a bus to the academy. When we arrive we do fitness, court practice and then do fitness and train again before we do stretching.

Marcus Daniel is also here with me so it is great to have someone I know who I can also learn from. It is then back on the bus and train at the end of the day, home cooked dinner and then bed. I will be playing some inter-club in the weekends. While the acadamy has a holiday break I'm off to the UK to join Miles to do ITF futures tournaments. After interclub has finished I will head to Spain or Italy to continue playing. 

Launching Soon!