IT is not the most apt message for a festive greeting but the words on the T-shirt seem appropriate for every season, particularly if the wearer has spent almost all her life relentlessly and tirelessly pursuing an ambition.
Dream. Suffer. Succeed.
The message seems incongruous when the setting is the douce David Lloyd- Glasgow West End and the wearer is a quiet, polite teenager who unpacks her racket yet another time, bounces on her feet and prepares to take the next step in her tennis career. One swing at a time.
Maia Lumsden, at 17, is now a crucial crossroads in a career that stretches back more than a decade to when she first picked up her racket at four to play her dad. Her brother, Ewen, 15, stands alongside her.
Scottish tennis has several family stories. Most famously, there are the Murrays – Andy and Jamie – who won the Davis Cup and the BBC team of the year award for Dunblane. Then there are the Smiths, these charming men of the court. Leon captained the Davis Cup team and Toby stands on this winter day within the cosy confines of the court in Anniesland as the coach who seeks to help the Lumsdens make the next step. His brother, Gary, also acts as a hitting partner for the brother and sister. Ewen, the Scotland under-16 champion, can now compete in practice with his sister who won the prestigious Orangebowl in 2012 and has contested all the junior grand slams.
The year ahead offers the promise of progress and the certainty of hard work for Ewen. Now stretching towards 5ft 10ins, he is now beginning to shrug off the concerns that he might be too small to compete at the top end of tennis. “I want to work on my serve, work in the gym and progress towards the world’s top 200,” he says. He has, of course, not only been named the Scottish junior player of the year but also won two silver medals – in the singles and the mixed doubles - in the Commonwealth Youth Games in Samoa. Like his sister, he is a devotee of Andy Murray but he also admires Kei Nishikori and is prepared to devote his life to his passion for tennis.
“I play for three hours, five days a week, and go into the gym for another hour,” he says. Toby Smith, coach and mentor, believes the experience of Maia has helped Ewen progress. “We did things with Maia that we will not do with Ewen. We maybe tried to chase the rankings with Maia and we will go another way with Ewen. We have learned and we are pleased with how he is progressing,” said Smith.
Maia, meanwhile, faces the big leap. She is leaving juniors behind and seeks to impress in 10ks, the $10,000 tournaments that prove a testing ground for young female players, before progressing to Challenger events, the gateway to the full WTA tour.
She has a stellar past. She has won an ITF under-18 in Malta, won the Super Auray Open, a competition that includes past winners such as Kim Clijsters and Justine Henin, and reached the third round in the girls’ tournament at Wimbledon. She has also trained in Amsterdam and at the IMG facility in Florida.
But she has returned to her native Glasgow to prepare for a ground-breaking season. Maia has grown up in a tough arena. She has for some time of booked her own flights and completed the entries for tournaments. She has travelled all over the world and has become an unusually mature teenager.
Her adventures in South America, Australia and elsewhere are not only life experiences but, she hopes, the basis of a future life in tennis. She is aware that this season will pose difficulties so is she nervous, apprehensive?
“No, I am excited,” she replies. “This is what I want to do and now I am on the verge of taking it further.”
The tennis education of the Lumsdens is an expensive business. Ewen is at Beaconhurst School in Stirling, close to the training facilities at Stirling University where Maia now studies.
“The sportscotland institute of sport have been brilliant with their support in terms of facilities and we are thankful for the help from Tennis Scotland and the LTA which has been brilliant,” says Smith. “But Maia now needs a coach for more weeks, particularly when she travels.”
There may now be scope for an approach to the business world to help sponsor a family affair that could blossom on the world stage. The dream remains and the suffering is shrugged off.
The hope of future success lies in the hearts of the Lumsdens but they may need a helping hand.
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