Welcome to Kamilla Bartone’s blog. The 17-year-old enjoyed a promising campaign in 2019, reaching the quarter-finals of two Junior Grand Slams and qualifying for the season-ending ITF Junior Finals in Chengdu. 2020 promises to be a big year for Bartone, who intends to make the transition from Juniors and play an increasing number of professional tournaments. She will be writing regular pieces for the ITF and providing insight into life as an aspiring player. Follow her progress here.

Dealing with disappointment and coping with defeat is a part of tennis.

During my last blog piece, I wrote about my aims for the Australian Open and the hopes I had for winning a Junior Grand Slam before concentrating solely on professional tournaments.

Despite being the third seed in Melbourne I was beaten in the first round by Russia’s Diana Shnaider. To lose in this way was really upsetting, especially after working so hard in pre-season on my technique and fitness.

When I lose, the very first thing I do is telephone my parents, Grazina and Viktor, or go and see them if they are at the tournament. Normally they try and say, ‘everything is fine and it is a tennis match in which anything can happen’.

Once I have spoken with them, I go for a cool down and stretch and then for the remainder of the evening I simply rest my mind. The next day, it’s time to go back to work.

As I say, I was really upset and disappointed with what happened against Diana, but it’s important to accept that this is tennis. One week you lose, one week you win. All you can do is work harder, never give up and continue to believe good things will happen.

It was a similar mindset after losing the girls’ doubles semi-final. I won the equivalent tournament at the US Open in September while partnering Oksana Selekhmeteva.

In Melbourne, I teamed up with Linda Fruhvirtova of Czech Republic and we were so close to reaching the final. Having won the first set, we then had two match points in the second before leading 7-1 and 8-4 in the super tiebreak.

Even now, I cannot really explain what happened. Alexandra Eala of the Philippines and Indonesia’s Priska Madelyn Nugroho, who went on to be crowned champions, had a bit of luck and Linda and I made some silly errors which turned the match.

It’s horrible to lose a match, especially when a final and potential silverware is in sight, in such circumstances but defeat is something which all players, across all sports, have to get over.

I also previously wrote about wanting to make the most of being in Melbourne, exploring the city and going to the zoo, with Kangaroos and Koalas top of my wish list to see.

Unfortunately, I didn’t get to the zoo and only made it into the city once. I currently train with the German Tennis Federation in Stuttgart and it was important to stay on court and support Alexandra Vecic, who performed extremely well and reached the semi-finals of the girls’ singles.

I haven’t played competitively since the Australian Open but on Friday I fly to Antalya in Turkey where I will play a couple of W15 tournaments during the next two weeks.

Between now and Friday I will look to get some practice on the indoor clay courts in Stuttgart before moving outside to train after arriving in Antalya.

I love playing outdoors, less so indoors, and it doesn’t really matter on which surface although clay does suit my game because I do a lot of drop shots and slices, which are so effective.

I’m really excited to play again on the ITF World Tennis Tour, which I haven’t done since reaching the second round at W60 Hechingen in August.

Over the course of the next few weeks I want to build my confidence as playing professional tournaments is not easy; you must believe in yourself and believe that you can win.

The main difference I have found between playing professional tournaments compared to juniors is that the pros make far less mistakes, they never give up and will not give you an easy game. But I am going to Antalya to show my best tennis and to win.

After the two tournaments, I am going home to Riga for a few days to chill out and to see my parents. I am looking forward to that.