Boy, have I got a very special blog to share with you all this week. It is an honour and a privilege to share with you all the first ever guest-written blog on ‘Ace in the Hold’.

It is fitting that such a monumental piece of work is written by none other than (one of) my best mate(s) on tour – Giles Hussey.

Before we get into Giles’ blog, I think it’s important that we give him a proper introduction and also add a few more words to this piece because he didn’t quite hit the word target I had set him… (He wrote about 45% of what I had asked him to write.)

Who is Giles?

Giles is a phenomenal (too nice a word – maybe change?) tennis player. He has been ranked as high as 475 in the world in singles and 213 in doubles. He’s won three professional singles titles (more about one of them in a bit…) and seven professional doubles titles, as well as reaching the final of the Drummondville Challenger doubles event in Canada last year. His best career win, to my knowledge, came against a young Ben Shelton in a college match between Giles’ University of Tennessee and Shelton’s University of Florida. 

Shelton is currently ranked 19 in the world and competed at the Laver Cup last weekend.

Giles beat him in straight sets.

However, I’m sure you aren’t that interested in Giles’ tennis ability – you can easily find all of the above information out by typing “Giles Hussey tennis” into Google. So, I wanted to share a few fun facts about Giles to really set the scene before you read about his recent trip to Budapest.

1. Giles has watched The Office (US) from start to finish at least 19 times. He can quote the entirety of almost every episode.

2. When he was at school, Giles memorised the first 200 digits of pi.

3. He is a world class Clash of Clans player. He has four different accounts on the game, two of which are max level. It takes 5 and a half years to max out a base from start to finish.

4. He supports Manchester United, despite living in Wiltshire.

Now, without further ado, here is Giles’ blog about his recent trip to Budapest…

Any time there is text in a pink bubble like this, this is me (Ben) adding a bit of depth and context to whatever Giles is talking about.

Giles’ Blog

I’ll start out by apologising to the avid readers and subscribers who have become accustomed to Ben’s witty writing – I will do my best to carry the load.

This edition of the blog saw me travel to Budapest, Hungary. This was my first ever time in Hungary, which given how much tennis players travel, is rare. The tournament was a 15k event and had a strong contingent of British players, including; Jimmy, who you met in the Israel blog; Matt, who is part of the same academy as myself, Ben and Jimmy; and Adam ‘Jonesy’ Jones, my roommate for the trip.

Note: A couple of things here regarding Adam ‘Jonesy’ Jones. Firstly, and most importantly, we are not related. Secondly, Adam is a legend of the world tennis tour and I am eagerly awaiting the opportunity to get him on the blog.

The first few days of the trip saw us settle into some routines. My favourite of these was our commute between the tennis club and the hotel which was approximately a 7-minute electric scooter ride along the Danube. The leisurely ride quickly turned into a competition of who could complete it in the fastest possible time – the current world record of  5 minutes and 39 seconds was set by me.

Fun fact: the Danube must be artificially flooded at certain times of the year in order to protect surrounding wetlands and floodplains that would otherwise not survive without the additional water. Giles was going to put this fact in the blog but I’ve had to add it in post-edit.

These sort of routines feature heavily among the tennis community, with us naturally being creatures of superstition. 

Another part of our ritual for the week was that we had dinner at the same time every night, at the same restaurant, playing the same card games. Some of us, myself included, took the routine a step further, and refused to change our dinner order if we kept winning matches. Jimmy managed to eat five club sandwiches in two days while he kept winning matches.

These strict routines meant that the tournament was a success for the British boys.

On Saturday afternoon, Matt and Jimmy teamed up to capture the doubles title – this was Matt’s first professional title, and Jimmy’s third consecutive title after his two recent triumphs in Israel with Ben. It was a great week for the two young men, who have a strong connection from playing together at the University of Denver.

Fun fact: Matt and Jimmy are from the same county; trained at the same tennis club when they were younger; went to the same school as each other; spent 4 years together at university; and now both train at the same academy while they play professionally.

On Sunday, it was my turn to carry the boat (and the logs), as I completed the British invasion of Hungary by capturing my second professional singles title, and my first in almost two years!

Side note: In my professional career I have roomed with Adam ‘Jonesy’ Jones only twice, and those were the weeks that I captured my only two singles titles… coincidence? He’ll tell you it’s not. 

Maybe it’s time to take Adam on tour with me every week.

Since the writing of this blog, Giles won his third professional singles title in Danderyd, Sweden. He was not sharing a room with Adam.

So, it had proved to be a hell of a week for the lads in Budapest, even for Adam who despite not having the best tournament on court, had a successful Hinge date on Thursday night…

This concluded the trip for me as I headed off to Italy for a little R and R, whilst Jimmy and Matt stayed in Buda for another tournament. Good luck boys!

Thank you all for reading, and thanks to Ben for having me on the blog. Best believe I’ll be back!

Who else do you want to see write a guest blog about their tennis/travel experience? Let me know below;