Duncan Prior Tennis

Introduction At the time of writing I am 47 years old, a full-time tennis coach for the Northwest Tennis Academy (Tamworth, Australia), play tennis competitively as a my main hobby, and have an eight-year-old daughter who plays competitive tennis. The mind aspect of sport has always been a fascination to me and what I focused on in both my undergraduate and postgraduate sports-based degrees. This post is an attempt to reflect on my key learnings by selecting five pivitol moments in my journey so far........ Pivitol Moment 1: The Inner Game In June 1997 (aged 18), I guaduated from Colchester Sixth Form College and took a gap year. I spent three months coaching at a residential camp in the Pocono Mountains, travelled in America and Canada, and then returned home to England. I then started building my hours as a coach and also focused on developing my own playing skills. For a number of years I had played my mate Dan who was a year younger than me and had come to tennis relatively l...

Wishing everyone a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from Tamworth (Australia). I hope you have had a fun year and excited about the possibilities in 2026. I finished 2024 in England, arriving on the afternoon of New Years Eve! It was my first trip back since we emigrated in 2018. Katherine and Frankie stayed in Australia and the trip was mainly focused on spending time with my mum and brother. I stayed for nearly a month and it was great to reconnect with my roots. It was an emotional moment visiting my dad's grave for the first time. He has a lovely spot outside Lawford Church. I also enjoyed a walking trip to the beautiful Lake District, a visit to Kent, playing Padel Tennis for the first time, and watching Only Fools & Horses on stage in Ipswich.  I arrived back in Australia in late January and it was a shock to the system to be back into the heat of the summer and straight into a new term of tennis coaching. It has been an exciting time, as the Tennis Centre and Restaur...

Wishing everyone a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from Tamworth (Australia). I hope you have had a great year and excited about the possibilities for 2025.  We have had a fun year since I wrote my last annual blog. We spent Christmas 2023 with my aunt and her family in Canberra. We then went to Brisbane for New Years with Katherine's family, including a trip to see Rafael Nadal play in his penultimate match in Australia. It was then on to the highlight of my year with my first visit to the Australian Open tennis in Melbourne. It made it the spectator Grand Slam for me, to add to my previous visits to New York, Paris and Wimbledon.  Frankie entered her seventh year and is enjoying life. She changed schools early in the year and now goes to Calrossy Anglician School . She is really thriving in lots of areas at her new school and I really enjoyed going to her Book Week Parade where she dressed up as Sophie from The BFG . For Frankie's 7th birthday we took her to Sydney, wher...

Wishing everyone a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from Tamworth (Australia). I hope this message finds you in good health and having had a fun and rewarding 2023. We have had a fun year as a family and enjoyed trips to Sydney, Canberra and Brisbane. We started the started the year in Brisbane, where we brought in the New Year with Katherine’s family. We also went to watch the United Cup (team tennis event), where we saw Poland beat Italy in a deciding doubles rubber. We had great fun in Canberra celebrating the Chinese New Year with Katherine’s wider family. In our trip to Sydney at Easter, my highlight was going to Taronga Zoo. In our second trip to Brisbane we spent four great days at the Tangalooma Island Resort with Katherine's immediate family and enjoyed feeding the wild dolphins and whale watching. It is great place to take children and we could not get Frankie out of the sea! Frankie had her first year at school and has really thrived. She is a keen learner and loves dr...

Wishing everyone a Merry Christmas & Happy New Year from Australia. I hope this message finds you in good health and having a seasonal break with less challenges than the last few years. Australia and the state of New South Wales where we live has had the challenges of high rainfall and flooding over the last few months. We have not been directly affected yet, but the Peel River through Tamworth has flooded a few times. Thoughts with anyone who has been affected by the flooding.  2022 has been a fun year, with our highlight as a family being the trip, we took to Kangaroo Island (near Adelaide). I was given an 'Australian Bucket List' book a few years ago and Frankie studies it furiously, and has pick-out a few favourites she wants to visit, including Kangaroo Island! It is the third largest Australian island, and well worth a visit. The afternoon we spent at Seal Bay was very special and unique opportunity to get close to the Sealions in their natural habitat. Another highl...

In the European summer of 2004, I was in my mid-20s, and had taken the decision to return to full-time tennis coaching. I had been unable to play competitive tennis for two years and had cut back considerably on my tennis coaching hours, as I was struggling with chronic foot pain, often known as plantar fasciitis. I took a job for Mark Warner Holidays working on the island of Kos, in Greece. I had very little belief in my body to be able to hold up to doing 6 days of tennis coaching a week, but I was excited to be in this amazing location for the next four months. Two months into my adventure, one of the other coaches in the team insisted I talked to one of the guests called Rob, who he said could help me with my injuries.  It turned out that Rob was a holistic dentist, not something I had heard of before! The fundamental of his work is that he believes that the alignment of the jaw has a major impact of the functionality of the overall body. Rob said the first time he saw me he ho...

Wishing everyone a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. I can imagine 2021 has been another challenging year for most people and I hope you have found a way to make some sense of it all. At the start of the year we sadly lost my dad to cancer. I wrote a blog about my dad and did a video recording for his memorial service. It has been powerful for me to revisit what I wrote and said and continue to take inspiration from dad. My heart goes out to anyone who has not been able to connect in person with a loved one in the final stages of their life as I can see that is one of the hardest parts of living through a pandemic. We are now into our fourth year of living in Australia and are enjoying and embracing our life in Tamworth. It is my first time being in Australia for an Australian Ashes and the banter is high! I am writing this just after the second test and a bit deflated by the England performance but fingers crossed we can up our game in the third test. Australia is very much...