2 Avenue Gordon Bennett, 75016 Paris, France, 1 June 2017 | Jeremy Jin

I was nervous and excited to board the plane to Paris, it was the longest flight I have ever been on. I only had a few hours of sleep on the plane, the rest of the time I spent watching movies. We stopped off in Dubai and I was already wanting to get to my hotel room and sleep. The next seven hours on the plane felt like such a long time, but we finally made it to Paris. During the car ride to the hotel I was extremely tired, but when I saw the Eiffel Tower for the first time I got excited and instantly woke up.

I went sight-seeing during my first full day in Paris. Our hotel is right next to the Eiffel Tower so we walked there. I couldn’t believe how tall it was. We continued to walk along the Seine, there were so many boats on the river filled with tourists. We also walked up to the Arc De Triomphe, again it looked so much bigger than what I thought it would be.

On Tuesday we began our training camp with the Longines Academy. We went to La Defense where they have built a pop-up tennis court in the middle of all these buildings especially for the tournament. Half of the group stayed here and the other half went to the second venue, La Chataigneraie to practice. We all had lunch together afterwards then we split up again. This time my group played at La Defense. It was great getting to hit with the other kids and to see how everyone plays.

On Wednesday we all travelled to La Defense again. This time we would meet the Patron of the Longines Future Tennis Aces tournament, Alex Corretja. We all had the chance to hit with him as well which was extremely exciting, He doesn’t miss a ball!! Once we all had the opportunity to hit with him, we took some photos and then moved on to La Chataigneraie for lunch and another practice session.

In the evening we attended the draw ceremony, which was inside the Eiffel Tower. Our names were pulled out at random and we were placed into four groups of five with the top two players from each group moving onto the quarter-finals. It was incredible being inside the Eiffel Tower, the views of Paris were amazing.

Tomorrow the matches begin, I am nervous but excited. I can’t wait to get on court and play my first match and represent Australia.

-ends-

Jeremy is set to take on the United States’ Nishesh Reddy Basavareddy, Hong Kong’s Chak Lam Coleman Wong, Russia’s Nikita Bochkarev and the United Kingdom’s William Jansen in his group after the draw was announced at the Eiffel Tower in Paris by this year’s tournament patron and former World No.2 Alex Corretja from Spain.

The tournament will run over the next three days at La Défense in Paris, with the final match played on Saturday 3 June. The tennis prodigy finalists will also be lucky enough to play a special exhibition match with Longines Ambassador and Tennis legend, Andre Agassi and Corretja.

The champion of the tournament will be honoured with the 2017 Longines Future Tennis Aces trophy, along with a special Longines timepiece. In addition, the two finalists will also receive an annual bursary until their respective 16^th birthdays to support them in pursuing their tennis careers.