Stories from ITF South American Junior Circuit by Margarit

[12 March 2009]
Sergiu Margarit played for almost five weeks in South American Junior Circuit, a lot of experiences and advices being told here:

"In the following lines there are little information about South America, especially from Peru, Bolivia, Chile and Argentina. I will try to discuss about three major topics: transportation, life and the beautiful experience that tennis offers you.

I will start with the beginning: the trip. To make such a road it's very tiring not only for the mind but also for the body, the latest leaning like a vegetable for 24 hours. Obviously you realized already that the common method of transport is by plane which is an incommode way of travel for short or long distances. Because of the time differences I recommend you to stay awake for the entire journey for a faster adaptation. The toughest part of the travel was when we crossed the Atlantic Ocean, the others flying parts between countries being better. Important information in my opinion is about how you can get Mar del Plata from Buenos Aires. The easiest way is to look after travel agencies in the airport after you passed the custom. I point "Tienda Leone" for the safest travel. That's all about transportation.

Regarding the standards of life, South America doesn't seem to be a developed continent - technologically speaking, but from the social point of view those people are meeting unbelievable demands. Although I've told that there isn't visible a major development, in a realistic way of saying a little comparison between the quality of the roads met in  Europe and South America will show us the exactly kind of roads like in Germany or Austria in all other the places with few exceptions.

From the all four countries the most impressive was Bolivia, especially the capital La Paz, a city at the 4000 m altitude, built on the mountains slopes which bring views of the urban people but also of the ancient people, bringing the argument the fact that all other there is a traditional garment used by women.

Santiago de Chile let also a good impression for me because here I saw something which can be seen very rare in Europe, buildings in European style but interfered with a lot of nature which eclipse the aspect of our cities called also "concrete jungle".

Since I've already talked about first ideas, I will try to develop the last one. In the South American tennis circuit there are a lot of high graded events, but pretty accessible for the European players. Although this circuit is stretched up to almost three months, after my experience as junior I recommend playing three or four events in a row. From those ones the first one should be for adaptation, so the pressure for results shouldn't be so high. After the adaptation has completed it can be said that the batteries have been charged and the "fighter" is ready to attack.

Taking into account the conditions of playing, Bolivia is the toughest one because of the altitude. This makes the air look like dust because it's very hard to breathe normally during the effort, also the balls flying without a stopover until they reach the fences. That's why this tournament has not so many high-ranked players.

I can discuss about Peru, Chile and Argentina also. In Peru there are the best conditions of playing, without mentioning all the organization's very good conditions. In Chile you can find the worst tennis courts, but it shouldn't be a motive. Anyway the club is also pretty bad and there is no comparison between this one and the tennis clubs from Peru and Bolivia. Argentina is more like a European country, but with pretty bad tennis courts also. The organization was the worse in my opinion.

I hope this article will help the players who want to have this extraordinary experience from now on, an experience which really worth ..."

There are few more materials regardind South America in the Blog section of this site, available in the romanian language only (most of them ).

A photo gallery from South America is available in the Multimedia section or by clicking here.

 

 

 

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