{"id":9778,"date":"2020-12-24T11:14:20","date_gmt":"2020-12-24T00:14:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/tas\/?p=9778"},"modified":"2020-12-24T11:16:47","modified_gmt":"2020-12-24T00:16:47","slug":"harry-bourchier-confident-of-big-year-following-promising-utr-win","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/tas\/news\/2020\/12\/24\/harry-bourchier-confident-of-big-year-following-promising-utr-win","title":{"rendered":"Harry Bourchier reflects on 2020 ahead of big summer"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Tasmanian\nHarry Bourchier is looking forward to spending his first Christmas in the state\nin nearly ten years following a confidence-boosting run of form in Brisbane.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Melbourne-based 24 year-old touched down in Hobart late last week and was all smiles when reflecting on his year after hitting with junior players Zola Case-Boag, Escher Case-Boag and Case Ambler (picture above) at the Domain Tennis Centre on Wednesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m very\nhappy to be back in Tasmania after spending the time in lockdown in Melbourne\nand glad things are improving in Australia,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201c(Being in\nlockdown in Victoria) has been tough but I was fortunate enough to get a permit\nto be able to play tennis every day, so I\u2019ve been practicing five or six times\na week.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHopefully\nnext year things will free up a little bit and make it easier (to travel).\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bourchier\nhad made the quarterfinals at the Australian Pro Tour tournament in Geelong in\nMarch when tournaments were postponed due to the pandemic, but in recent months\nhas been able to gain valuable match practice with Victorian Premier League\nside Royal South Yarra and the subsequent introduction of Universal Tennis\nRating events.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After getting used to the UTR format, he claimed a victory in the final Pro Series event before the break when Queensland\u2019s Bernard Tomic pulled out of the final on home turf.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019ve spent\nthe last three to four weeks playing in the UTR events, and I won the last one\nin Brisbane before coming down here,\u201d Bourchier said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019ve\nplayed 16 matches in 25 days, so that\u2019s been great for me and I\u2019m happy where\nthings are at.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a lot\nof matches, but with the round robin I had four guaranteed matches in each\ntournament, so I was able to compete even if I did lose on the first day\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cRecently I\nplayed (Australian Open wildcard recipient) Marc Polmans, who\u2019s ranked World\nNo.120, and I knocked him off 6-3, 6-4, so that just shows that with training\nand everything has been a positive for me.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Following a\nshort Christmas break, Bourchier will head overseas in an attempt to qualify\nfor the Australian Open after making the quarterfinals of the playoffs this\ntime last year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cQualifying\nis going to be taking place in Doha (Qatar), which is very unusual, so I\u2019ll\nhave to head over there and then go into a Covid bubble on the way home,\u201d he\nsaid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019ll go back up to Brisbane and prepare for another UTR event where I\u2019ll get four matches, and then I\u2019ll head off to Doha on the sixth of January and compete there on the ninth or tenth.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Harry competes during a recent UTR Pro Series event in Australia.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

After\njumping from a ranking of World No.750 to inside the top 300 in the 2019\ncalendar year, Bourchier is candid about the momentum halt he experienced in\n2020, after reaching a career-high of 279 in January.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI wasn\u2019t\nable to consolidate this year and I missed six months of overseas tournaments,\u201d\nhe said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHaving\nsaid that, I\u2019m pretty refreshed and I feel like my game is in a positive\nposition.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis is\nthe first year I\u2019ve spent a good chunk of time in Australia, and I feel it can\nsnowball and go in the right direction for me.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Currently\nranked at No.325, Bourchier is thinking big in terms of short and longer term\ngoals, and is confident that next year will be one to remember.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf all\ngoes well I\u2019d like to go top 200, which would get me the qualifying on my\nranking,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFrom there\nthe aim would be top-100, and I\u2019ll definitely be striving for that in the next\ntwo to three years.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019ve worked on my fitness and my strength and a few areas of my game, and I think that I can hit the ground running in 2021.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cI\u2019ve worked on a few areas of my game, and I think that I can hit the ground running in 2021.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6260,"featured_media":9779,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[262,1,254],"tags":[96,73,225],"class_list":["post-9778","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-harry-bourchier","category-news","category-utr","tag-harry-bourchier","tag-news","tag-utr"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/tas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9778","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/tas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/tas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/tas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6260"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/tas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9778"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/tas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9778\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/tas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9779"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/tas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9778"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/tas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9778"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/tas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9778"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}