Ellie Horton Year 9s2 Ms Wray
I have been playing for nine years for the Nottingham Tennis Centre, since I was four. I have been playing for the county since I was eight, a lot of the time I have been playing number one for Nottingham. I began to enter county tournaments when I was about eight, but at the age of ten I played for England.
The Tennis Lawn Association has a website which has ratings and rankings for individual players and it included information about me because I was in a lot of regional squads.
It meant that the Lawn Tennis Association knew of me, because at that stage, at the age of ten, I was in the top ten for the whole of the UK… and I was picked by the LTA for national competitions in tennis. My coach works around the country and goes to different countries. When I was still at the county, I was eleven, I had the opportunity to play against the British no.1 tennis player. I was really excited because it was a new event and I was really relaxed. I beat her and was so shocked, it took a few days to sink in! It was a really useful achievement because it demonstrated my skills to LTA.
Now that other students are going into sport Academies they take special coaching by national coaches but it means they miss education. I have decided to concentrate on my school work instead. They will get a head start in professional tennis but even though I have dropped a little bit of time, I am well within the top fifty in the United Kingdom. I still do well in National Tournaments, I recently competed in an international competition in held in Wrexham, Wales! I competed against Belgium and German players, they were really tall, it can feel a disadvantage to work against tall students, but the experience was really useful because I could see the difference in techniques which are used in Europe.
My plans, I would like to become a tennis coach, to national standards, but I also want to go to Bath University to do a combined Degree in sports and science and then go into sports physiotherapy.
Ellie also has a record twenty nine positive comments since September 09.
Wow Ellie, go girl!!!
