Rising Canberra tennis star Charlie Camus' whirlwind journey in Europe ITF tournaments

The past six weeks have been a whirlwind. Not so long ago the tennis prospect was locked down in Canberra wondering if he'd even be able to play again this year.

Then his life changed dramatically in about 72 hours. His father Olivier had applied for a travel exemption to send his son overseas for ITF tournaments designed to boost his world ranking.

He powered through a mountain of paperwork, booked flights knowing they could be cancelled at any time, sought insurance, vaccination documents "and a million other things".

Camus and his coach Brydan Klein were still calling Olivier from Sydney airport three hours before their flight to Paris, saying they wouldn't be allowed to board without a proper certificate showing a negative COVID-19 test result as opposed to a text message. Olivier rushed to contact ACT Pathology at 6pm on a Sunday night to get the certificates sent through.

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The frantic bid to send the rising star overseas has paid off so far - Camus has competed in five junior ITF tournaments, winning four, to reignite his hopes of competing in next year's junior slams.

"That's the plan, hopefully to get a wildcard and play junior Australian Open in January, and then see where it goes from there. I'll see where my ranking is and hopefully start playing all of the junior Grand Slams next year. That's the goal," Camus said.

"Basically because Canberra was in lockdown, we thought borders weren't really going to open this year. To play and to keep up with the rest of the world, you just have to get out.

"It was up in the air for a month beforehand. We were talking about it, then we applied for an exemption and they approved it, and from then it all happened super quickly.

"A few days out, like two or three days before, is when everything got confirmed and organised so it happened really quickly. All of a sudden, before we even realised we were on the plane."

The rising tennis star is in Europe with his coach Klein, a winner of the 2007 junior Australian Open who has been working with Camus for a year and a half, and on a daily basis for the past four months.

Camus has won tournaments in Ponts de Ce, Colomiers, Blagnac and Liverpool. He was a quarter-finalist in La Nucia.

Another three tournaments remain, as well as a training camp at Roland Garros, before returning to Canberra days before Christmas.

"We didn't expect it at all. We said before, if I won one tournament we would be very happy," Camus said.

"The goal before the trip was to get my ranking under 500 by the end of it and I've already achieved that in four tournaments.

"Because I've only played one ITF before, before I came over I was ranked like 1500th junior in the world, now I'm under 500, I'll be like 480 now I think.

"Especially since I've won some tournaments [overseas], it's looking a lot better than it was. I'm still not 100 per cent sure.

"All the matches are really good quality, the depth in these tournaments is really good. There's no real easy matches."

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