Recently, we have travel to Bangkok for a tennis tournament.
Its a new place for us. To be in a place you have never been will not be a comfortable things. But being a tennis player myself have taught me to go to places on my own. Handling things at places I have never been. One of the benefit of being a tennis player.
What I did in my coaching system is to mark down the tournaments from January to December. Both in Malaysia, Thailand and other places that we might go. From there, we know how many tournaments we should enter. Within that stipulated dates.
Like this tournament here in Alpine, we knew we will be going to a tournament on this date, there are 3 tournaments on the same date, the NTTAcademy monthly medals, Thanyapura, Phuket and Alpine, Bangkok. I chose Alpine because we have never played here before, and the players going to be different compared to NTTA and Thanyapura.
Decision made, and we registered for the tournament in Alpine. Its good that the organizers accepted two categories to play here. The girls will play 10 & under and 12 & under singles. There are no doubles matches in Thailand tour.
Once the tournament registered in http://www.ltat.org/tournaments , we can see that the automated acceptance list is generated. We can see who plays there in the tournament. Good to see unfamiliar faces with better ranks. Love it when they have better players to compete with. Its about developing the kids throughout the years.
Familiar with, “you learn more when you lose” ?
But sometimes, players need also the motivation of winning, thus the tournaments should be low-moderate-high type of tournaments to get that win-lose ratio right.
Then the next step is to book the hotel. I chose Nest n Rest hotel. Its merely 5.5km from Alpine Tennis Club. Its easy to have google map on your phone to know how far is the hotel.
Booking the hotel through http://booking.com is easy. The dates are 22-24th June 2024. We came one day earlier on 21st June from Hatyai using Vietjet Airlines.
For Airlines, I usually use Jetcost http://www.jetcost.com to compare the price. Getting the lowest price if we can, to get the best time we are able to get and if possible, to get the direct flight. No hassle to wait for connecting flights. We did got the direct flight and it is cheaper since its domestic flight, within Thailand.
Drive the car from Kangar to Hatyai, a one hour drive and park at the airport with the cost of 10 baht perday. That price is okay for me. Done that before and its safe.
There you go, tournament registration, the hotel, and the flight. Three pre tournament arrangement that you need to be doing. And off we go to Hatyai-Suvarnabhumi.
Commuting here to Alpine Tennis Club from the hotel using Grab is around 100 baht one way. Usually the waiting time was around 5 minutes and its quite convenient to use grab to move around. By the way, the cost for Grab car from the Suvarnabhumi airport to the Hotel was 380 baht. Its around 50 Ringgit Malaysia.
In Alpine, it was a little different from other places. The fees for the tournament was 800 baht per category compared to PTT 200baht, and Oceanic and Thanyapura 600baht each. But there are meals coupon given, and also a a sponsored Gatorade towels given.
It is not that complicated and hard to go on the tournament tour in Thailand especially if you are in Malaysia. Here, you have a lot more players and a lot more options and dates to choose from. Its 2 hours flight to Bangkok, and 2 days of tournament. It will be a wonderful experience for parents and coaches to join any tournaments in Thailand.
It just takes a little courage and a little effort to join. If you want players to be better, then one of it is through taoirnaments. All the best..!