Bridget Mihulka - Tennis

When year 11 MSA Tennis athlete Bridget Mihulka looks back at her junior tennis career, the European summer of 2023 could be the time that she looks back on with interest.  For it was this period a month ago that Bridget played on the ITF’s junior tour in Europe.

The trip organised by Tennis Australia is designed to give players a feeling of what it is like being on the tour and living out of a suitcase for a period of time, and for Bridget the trip was very educational.  “I went to Europe 4 weeks ago and went to the Netherlands and Germany and played in 3 tournaments.  My best result was reaching the semi-finals in doubles in the second week.  It was really a great trip organised by Tennis Australia, and I went with 2 other girls and 3 other boys, and it was an amazing experience playing in international tournaments and learning how to travel and live out of hotels.

While Bridget didn’t make it past the 1st round in her singles competition, she says the competition was as hard as she has been involved in. “The competition was strong, and all the Aussies who played were not that highly ranked.  All the girls we played were like so strong and we had to work hard to get a point.”

The experience taught Bridget a lot about playing tennis on the road.  “I now understand how difficult it is to be on tour and how hard it is to stay focused on the job because it would be easy to get home sick.  It was a great experience though because we got to learn to do everything by ourselves like prepare our food and washing our clothes and just learning all those things, while still trying to focus on playing good tennis and managing everything else.

While the overall experience will no doubt benefit Bridget over time, she is expecting to see immediate improvement in her game.  “The trip will benefit my tennis quite a lot as it really taught me about my game and where I need to improve. I now know what I need to focus on for my next training block and that will be helpful.”

Bridget continues to enjoy being a part of the Maribyrnong Sports Academy tennis program, sighting it as a massive benefit to her improvement.  “Training at MSA is really good because there is a really good balance of match play and consistent drills, and it’s great to get like a feel going into tournaments, I love it.”

We wish Bridget all the best as she starts to prepare for the Australian summer of Tennis.