It was an early start on day 3 of the Buenos Aires Tennis Trip. 6:38 was the exact time I woke up after going to bed at about 9:00. So after nine and a half hours of good sleep listening to the midnight rush of down town Buenos Aires I felt in quite a good mood for giving my all and playing good tennis.

After waking up and getting ready for the day ahead I took the lift downstairs to have some breakfast. My breakfast consisted of four croissants half French stick some cereal and two cups of orange juice. After breakfast we made a sharp exit out of the hotel and down to the Vilas Racquet.

My day of tennis started with an hour session of footwork training just to get me wormed up. However the work really began when I started a hard session of tennis with a full grown man who hit it twice as hard as me. To make matters worse the father of Mariano Puerta (French open finalist) who was one of the best coaches in Argentina, once coaching Coria, Chela and many other great players was watching me.

Lunch was next on the agenda and I had a native dish called Milanese which was a fattened chicken smothered in bread crumps served chips and fried eggs. On top of that I had a Coke and some ice cream for dessert. Also my highlight of the day came when I managed to get a picture with Diego Hartfield one of Argentina’s best players.

After lunch I had another intensive tennis session followed by a 45 minute gym session with my personal trainer for the week. This marathon of tennis had taken it out of me however it was nothing compared to what was to come.

On way back to the hotel mum and I wanted to have a look in a sports shop to try and replace some clothing items as our luggage still had not arrived. After that we tried to meet up with Rafa for some supper but unfortunately could not find the pizzeria that he had mentioned. We spent 45 minutes looking but as it was now dark and getting late we decided to head back to the hotel. Luckily mum had bought some provisions on the first day so we sat in the room and had some cold cut sandwiches. I was very tired after a long and strenuous day on the tennis court and so after eating we went to bed.

At the beginning of this month I was faced with quite a difficult decision ahead of me. My coach wanted me to train a lot more and therefore miss cricket as well as the lesson I already miss: Design Technology, Latin, Art and Rugby the previous term. This was because I had got to the stage in the development of my tennis game that intensive physical training was needed to improve my strength, agility and core stability.

This was on top of the half an hour of stretching and core stability a day I do by myself to try and improve my tennis ability. However it was not enough at the stage in my career that I was at. The decision I was going to have to make was whether I would play cricket or not. This was not an easy decision for me seeing as cricket was my second favourite sport after tennis of course. Eventually I decided on giving up cricket. I felt quite content with myself after the decision; then again there were a few doubts in my mind. I already got an ear full from my school pals about skipping a large section of work to play tennis and it is not easy for me to miss out, because it means I get left out and discarded from recent events.

Then on the first day of the summer term the school told me that for this year I would not be able to miss cricket. I felt quite disappointed in a way because I had got my whole mindset that I would be able to go that extra mile with my tennis but then I looked on the bright side to the school’s decision: I would play cricket, I would be mixing with my friends and I would not be unhappy. I was still disappointed in the decision though and I was unhappy I was being held back from doing something I wanted to do.

At the end of the month in my half term holiday I played in the Park Langley Junior Open, a Sunday Telegraph Grand Prix Grade 3 tournament. I was hoping to do well there were only handful of players that had better rankings as me and as the week passed on some of those players crashed out of the tournament. So by the Thursday when I played my match against a boy in the last sixteen I felt certain I could reach the semis or even the final. I had played him twice before winning one and losing one. I felt confident, strong, fit with no injuries and ready for war. In the first set I went 3-1 up with a break however then plummeted playing the worst tennis I had played in a long time and lost the first set 6-3. The rest of the match went the same way and my opponent giving nothing away. My head went down and I lost the match 6-3, 6-3.

My coach Rafa was fine with my performance as we hadn’t been specifically getting me ready for competition. I felt down, despondent and miserable as the boy went on to the semi-final. I had ended the month on a low and had to face the questions from all my school friends about how I had done when I went back to school.

This morning I rose lying straight across the row of four seats that were all occupied by myself. As my brain woke up I slowly ventured down the plane to where my coach was reading a newspaper. Just as I was about to doze off again, a tray of breakfast was served up in front of me. The tray was filled with a tub of yoghurt, water and a croissant with butter and strawberry jam. However I was feeling hungry seeing as I had not had much to eat the night before, and managed to scramble another croissant and yoghurt.

After the pilot landed the huge double decked plane it took an age to be released from the plane and then go through emigration. So after these to slight bumps in the road I was not fairly chuffed. The situation was made even more agonising when only three out of our five bags came through baggage reclaim. Thankfully my suitcase was one of the bags that did manage to make it to Buenos Aires.

The next procedure that we had to live through was the renting of our car. This was quite a long stage in the process of leaving the airport. This was because my coach Rafa could not decide which car he wanted for the week. However once the task of hiring a car was complete we were on the way out of the airport and back to the hotel.

At the hotel we checked in, unpacked and as I was still hungry I had a second breakfast of two croissants, two slices of toast, orange juice and cereals. Sightseeing was the next stop on our journey of Beunos Aires where I saw some quite remarkable things including the River Plate Football Stadium (one of the biggest in Argentina). Our next destination was a BBQ at one of Rafa’s friend’s house. (I had been looking forward to this all day.)And indeed my moment of the day fell into my mouth when I first tried a piece of Argentinean steak. As the day went on one by one guests started leving until at the end of the Boca Juniors match Rafa and me left to go back to the hotel.

Once we got to the hotel it was plain and simple. Straight to bed to get ready for the up and coming tennis torture.

As I was on my way to the airport I was feeling slightly subdued. This was the first time that I was having a trip away from home without my family. As I turned to wave goodbye my sadness was even more acute as I saw my younger sister crying in the arms of my dad in the car. However this feeling subsided gradually as the day progressed.

My journey started at the check in desk at London Gatwick, where we were greeted with a somewhat lack lustre woman. She was incredibly slow at her job and took almost 30 minutes to check our bags in, which really irritated both my coach Rafa and me; we just wanted to get going. Our annoyance was increased when we found out that our racket bags had to be checked in as they were too big to pass as hand luggage.

After a slow start we progressed to security, where we had to take off our belts, shoes, coats and load everything into a plastic tray for examination by the computer. Rafa and I were fine but both times my mum set the bells off ringing, I won’t let her come next time. Finally we were able to sit in the departure lounge and have a drink, packet of crisps and relax before the very long journey.

The first flight to Madrid was short but certainly not sweet. We travelled in a small plane no more than 25metres long and to make matters worse it was piping inside the jet. I managed to endure the savannah like climate though, by reading, listening to my ipod, and playing rummy. Roughly about ten minutes before landing I took a look out of my window and saw the whole of Madrid lit up and bussing with the night view, it was the best moment of the day.

The transit between the plane to Madrid and the plane to Buenos Aires was very rushed. This was because our check in point had been changed because we were British citizens. However once we managed to get over that hurdle the rest was easy.

The flight to Buenos Aires was extremely comfortable seeing as I had a whole row of seats to myself .I spent my time eating, playing cards, video games and watching movies. That evening I was shattered and as I fell to sleep it felt like my journey had been an adventure already however I knew it had just begun.