NSW player Rinky Hijikata would usually be on the college tennis circuit in America this time of year. Rinky has returned home, and while things have been a little different, he is determined to stay motivated.<\/p>\n
What has been keeping you active and motivated off court?<\/strong><\/p>\n “I\u2019ve been trying to keep as busy as possible off court, obviously it can get a little boring with the lockdown laws. Although I haven\u2019t been hitting too many tennis balls, I\u2019ve been making sure that I\u2019m staying fit and trying to get as physically strong as possible during this extended break. Besides that, I\u2019ve had a bit of uni work keeping me occupied throughout the day. And more importantly, I\u2019m trying to learn how to play golf, and I\u2019ve got a lot of work to do there”.<\/p>\n How has your training schedule changed over the last few months?<\/strong><\/p>\n “I took a bit of a break at the beginning of the whole COVID-19 situation. I obviously had to do the two weeks self-isolation once I got back from the US, so I probably didn\u2019t pick up a racquet for about a month. I was doing some workouts in my home by myself and trying to stay active somehow. Since the restrictions have loosened up, I\u2019ve been back hitting 3-4 times a week”.<\/p>\n What are some of the things you are most looking forward to when tournaments and travel resume?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n “I\u2019ve really missed being able to compete in matches and at tournaments. I think that\u2019s the most fun part of being a tennis player and it\u2019s hard to replicate that feeling you get while playing in a big match or in front of a big crowd. I\u2019m also really excited to go back to college at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill once the travel restrictions are dropped. I had to leave on pretty short notice, so it\u2019ll be great when I can go back and catch up with my team and my friends”.<\/p>\n \u00a0What\u2019s a good tip you have for a younger aspiring tennis player?<\/strong><\/p>\n “I think the biggest thing in tennis is to just enjoy it as much as possible. It\u2019s easy to take it for granted when you\u2019re able to play such a great sport day in and day out and it\u2019s tough when a situation like this takes it away from you. I also think that you will improve a lot quicker if you are really invested in what you\u2019re doing and enjoy the process”.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" NSW player Rinky Hijikata would usually be on the college tennis circuit in America this time of year. Rinky has returned home, and while things have been a little different, he is determined to stay motivated. What has been keeping you active and motivated off court? “I\u2019ve been trying to keep as busy as possible […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6180,"featured_media":15918,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16601","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/nsw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16601","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/nsw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/nsw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/nsw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/nsw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16601"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/nsw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16601\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/nsw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15918"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/nsw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16601"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/nsw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16601"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/nsw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16601"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}