u/Colascape

I am struggling to find a way to break out of recreational level and get into club / competitive level in the UK as someone who started playing in adulthood.

There seems to be a gulf in skill level that I am sitting right in the middle of, which makes it really hard to practice or find matches.

I can fairly easily win the grade 7 local tennis leagues, but get crushed at grade 5 level tournaments / club level leagues due to just having very little match XP or practice when people start hitting hard and moving fast. Meanwhile grade 6 level events appear to be an enigma here in the UK, and no-one really is at my level it seems in my area.

Anyone faced this issue before or have any suggestions on how to break through the gulf?