Wednesday 29^th April 2015

It’s been a good week in Botswana but unfortunately it came to an end this afternoon as Toby and Goni went down to number 1 seeds Calvin Jordaan and Timothy Dollman in the ¼ Final of the doubles.

We had a slightly more relaxed morning today which saw us meet for breakfast at 8am and then head over to the club at 9am with Benny. Toby and Goni’s doubles match had a not before time of 2.30pm but because we needed to leave the tournament site to get lunch we had to make sure that we could get our training completed and then get over to Airport Junction and back again by the latest 1.45pm.

As soon as we arrived at the club we started warming up on one of the older back courts before moving to court 9 to start the session. We had planned on training for an hour but by the time we had worked on some groundstrokes, drilled a lot of volleys including doing some doubles specific points and then work on serve and return we actually didn’t finish until just before 11.30am. We then had a quick shower and met up with Benny who took us over to Rhapsody’s for lunch.

When we returned to the club at about 1.30pm the referee was keen to get us on court as soon as possible but as he had stated ‘not before 2.30pm’ we knew that we had plenty of time to mentally and physically prepare for the match. Unfortunately when it got to 2.30pm Toby and the two South African’s were on court ready to play but no-one could find Goni! After looking for him for 10 minutes we were starting to get a little nervous as they could get defaulted if they weren’t on court 15 minutes after being called but luckily we found him fast asleep at the back of one of the stands!

Despite Goni still looking half asleep when the match started the boys settled in well for the first three games but after a tight forth game Goni was broken and they fell 1-3* behind. Toby and Goni responded well and broke Calvin Jordaan in the very next game but after that the number 1 seeds raised their game and went on to take the set 6-3.

Toby and Goni were a little more static at the net during the first set than they were yesterday and despite trying to do different things in the second set, they just couldn’t string enough good points together to really hurt Calvin and Timothy. The South African pair broke Toby in the first game of the second set and then never really looked back as they went on to take the set 6-0.

It was a big ask for Toby and Goni to take down a solid pair like Calvin and Timothy but at the same time they could have been more effective with their net games and, if they had kept closer during the opening stages of the first set, maybe it might have been a different story.

After the match we returned to the guesthouse to start to pack up our things and get ready for our flights to Namibia tomorrow.  We then headed out to Riverwalk Mall at 6.15pm for dinner and while we were driving over Benny told us that the government had switched off the electricity in the houses in the local area as part of an energy saving plan. The restaurants still had power as they had generators but apart from that all of the houses and neighbourhoods that we passed were in complete darkness.

When we returned to the guesthouse at 8pm the electricity was still off but it did give us a chance to have a proper conversation with Shirley (the owner) and one of her friends who lives across the street. Sometimes we’re so busy during the day that we just go from doing one thing to another but tonight we were able to stand out in front of the house with no light pollution and thousands of stars shinning above our heads and actually learn a bit about each other’s lives.

We spent a really nice hour talking about all kinds of things and it really made me realise how lucky we are to travel so much and see so many amazing places around the world. Shirley and Benny have only ever been to South Africa and Botswana and had never heard of many of the countries that we’d visited. They’d also never seen snow before and thought it was hilarious when I showed them a video of my daughter skiing and sledging! It was a really nice feeling to be able to share things with them and I hope to keep in touch with them in the future.

It was a lovely end to our time here in Botswana and now we’ll have a day off tomorrow while we travel to Namibia for the next event which starts of Saturday.

Tuesday 28^th April 2015

We had a big high today and also a pretty low low but we got through the day in one piece and are still fighting hard in one of our two events.

Even though Toby’s singles match had a ‘not before’ time of 12pm we needed to be up early so that we had time to practice, get some lunch and then get back to the club with enough time to warm up before 12pm. Rarely do matches go on court around their ‘not before’ times but we had to make sure we were back on site in case other matches had gone quicker than expected!

That meant it was a 7am breakfast, a 8am taxi ride to the club so that we could warm up at 8.30am ready for our practice court booking of 9am – military precision as always! We actually ended up hitting for 45 minutes during which time we warmed everything up and then did some specific drills based on what we knew about Toby’s opponent. These included making sure Toby’s first volley was sharp (as he’d be looking to move forwards as much as possible to take his opponent’s time away) and also feeding Toby a lot of ‘heavy’ balls as we knew that Michael Copeland has a pretty spinny forehand.

Once we were happy with the level Toby had found we showered and changed and then made our way over to Airport Junction Mall for an early lunch.

We arrived back on site at around 11.30am and realised straight away that we had quite a bit of time before Toby would go on. That wasn’t a problem though as it gave us enough time to watch some of the other 2^nd round matches before making sure we were fully prepared for Toby’s match.

At just before 2pm Toby went on to face 5^th seed Michael Copeland from South Africa. It can be a little tricky for seeds to face Qualifiers in a 48 draw as in the back of their minds they know that, while it’s their first match in the tournament, the Qualifier might have already had a few matches to get used to the surface / balls / conditions etc. That was slightly the case today as Michael started a little nervously while Toby looked a lot more confident than in his previous two matches.

After each player held their first service game Toby struggled in his next one and ended up being broken. However, in the very next game he produced some of his best tennis on the trip to take control of Michael’s service game but when it came to the final ball of the rally he struggled to execute the winning shot. That gave Michael a bit of confidence which he used to race to a *1-5 lead. Toby managed to hold his next service game and again had chances to break back but unfortunately he lost the set 6-2.

The first set was actually a lot closer than the scoreline suggests but at the time Toby didn’t realise it and, by the time the second set started, Toby felt as though he had a massive mountain to climb. At the same time Michael had relaxed, found his rhythm and had a lot of confidence which he once again used to control the set. Toby fought hard despite going 3-0 down early on but was unable to turn the set around and eventually lost the match 6-2, 6-0.

As Toby had another match later in the day it was important that he understood what had happened in his singles match and what he needed to do in the next match to turn things around. We had a good honest debrief and Toby realised that he could have been a lot more positive in his singles match so it was up to him to make things right in the doubles.

At 5.15pm (just as the sun was starting to go down) Toby and Goni went on to face Steele Greyling and Danrich Kruger from South Africa. The match started on one of the back courts but at 1-1* they were told that they needed to move courts to a floodlit one at the next change of ends. Toby and Goni managed to break Danrich’s serve in that game (after being 40-15 down when they were told they needed to change courts!) and when they went under lights they extended their lead to 3-1*. Unfortunately Toby was broken at *3-2 and then the set went closely with serve until *4-5 when Toby served well to win a ‘Sudden Death Deuce’ point which was also a set point for Steele and Danrich. After that the set went into a tie-break and, after Toby and Goni got a break-through to lead 5-3*, they went on to take the tie-break 7-5.

Taking that first set really quietened down the South African’s while at the same time Toby and Goni found more energy. From *1-1 Toby and Goni won 3 games in a row to Sudden Death Deuce points and even though they lost the next game to another Sudden Death Deuce point they held Goni’s serve and then broke Danrich to take the match 7-6(5), 6-2. Toby got a little nervous on a big smash in second to last game and also a simple 2^nd serve return on Match Point but it was understandable as he was playing for his first ITF points!

After the match Toby and I were both really pleased that he’s managed to secure his first ranking points but we also both know that his singles performance was not as good as we want it to be. We’ve still got the doubles ¼ final to look forward tomorrow and also more training to work on Toby’s singles game to prepare him for next week.

Schedule for tomorrow:

(1) Timothy Dollman (RSA) & Calvin Jordaan (RSA) vs (8) Toby Huffer (GBR) & Ngonidzashe Makambwa (ZIM) – 4^th match after 9am (not before 2.30pm)

Monday 27^th April 2015

It was another good day at the Botswana National Tennis Centre today as Toby won his 1^st round Main Draw match and also secured a good partner for the doubles.

Due to Toby being the 1^st match on at 9am we were up early and at breakfast by 6.30am and then left with Benny for the club at 7am. We’ve been used to it being pretty warm out here but when we stepped out of the front door of the guesthouse this morning we both wondered whether it might have been a bit cold for shorts and t-shirt! – especially when Benny was wrapped up like he was going to the Artic!

Once we’d both gone through our physical warm up we had a quick game of ‘Bounce’ then hit from 8-8.30am. Toby was looking much more confident from the back of the court and I think yesterday evening’s session had a lot to do with that. He was also serving a lot more consistently and by the time we’d finished we were both happy with the level that he was playing at.

In the half an hour break between when we finished and when Toby went on for his match we went through the game plan & goals and also made sure that Toby had signed in for the doubles with Ngonidzashe (“Goni”) Makambwa from Zimbabwe. He then went on court at 9am to face Mpho Mbizo from Botswana.

From the beginning of the match it was clear that Toby was a lot more comfortable on the court than he was yesterday and despite his early service percentage being a little low, he was able to dominate the points from the back of the court. Toby raced to a 4-0* lead but after Mpho held in the next game his confidence increased considerably and he went on to break Toby to make the score 4-2*. Toby responded well and hit 5 winners in the next two games to break and hold serve to take the opening set 6-2.

The second set was the best set of tennis that Toby has played since we arrived here; he was looking very confident, hitting aggressively from the baseline and also creating a lot of opportunities to come in and finish points from the net. Toby took a 2-0* lead before Mpho managed to get a game on the board but it was the last one he won in the match as Toby went on to take the next 4 games in a row to win the match 6-2, 6-1.

It was a much more confident, composed and focussed match than yesterday which will give Toby a big boost before he takes on the 5^th seed tomorrow in the 2^nd round.

After the match we headed over to Airport Junction Mall to have some lunch and then returned to the club to check out the doubles draw. Unfortunately the referee has had a few problems with the draws over the past couple of days and had to re-do the boy’s doubles draw after using the wrong ranking! Eventually he got it right and it saw Toby and Goni get a bye in the opening round:

As Toby didn’t have a doubles match today we decided to return to the guesthouse for a couple of hours this afternoon before returning to the club to have a good training session from 4.30-6pm. Toby was keen just to find his rhythm again and also play a few service and returning games to prepare himself for the match tomorrow.

Once we were finished we showered and changed before going back over to Airport Junction for dinner at Rhapsody’s. Toby had a great meal but unfortunately I think they forgot to cook my chicken! They got it right in the end though and I’m sure it’s not going to put us off going back there for lunch and dinner tomorrow!

Schedule for tomorrow:

(Q) Toby Huffer (GBR) (UNR) vs (5) Michael Copeland (RSA) (763) – 4^th match after 8.30am (not before 12pm)

Steele Greyling (RSA) & Danrich Kruger (RSA) vs (8) Toby Huffer (GBR) & Ngonidzashe Makambwa (ZIM) – 6^th match after 8.30am

Sunday 26^th April 2015

Toby had a very tough match today but despite not playing his best, he managed to fight through it and into the Main Draw.

Our day started a little early than the last couple of days and we were up and at breakfast by 7am. Benny then drove us to the club at 8am so that we had plenty of time to warm up before our 9am pre-match hit. During the session I was really pleased with how well Toby was timing the ball and I think in the first 10 minutes he only missed 2 or 3 balls! We needed to move courts during the 30 minute hit but that did us a bit of a favour as it meant that Toby could hit on his match court and it also gave him a chance to get used to the position of the sun.

From 9.30 – 10am we relaxed and then went through a pre-match briefing so that we were both on the same page with tactics and goals for the match. Then at 10am Toby went on to face Da-niel Kotze from South Africa.

Toby started with a solid first game and held serve to take a 1-0 lead but Da-niel responded with a good hold of his own to level the set. Then at 1-1 with Toby serving things started to do downhill pretty quickly. His serving percentage was a little lower than normal but the big difficulty that Toby had was maintaining a consistency from the back of the court. Da-niel wasn’t really doing much with the ball and in fact he only hit 2 winners in the next 4 games but at the same time Toby made 13 unforced errors and found himself *1-5 down. Over the past couple of months Toby has been working hard on analysing problems on the court and fighting hard to turn things around when they’re not going his way. I’m very pleased that he did just that today! From *1-5 he went back to basics; he made a lot more first serves and made sure that Da-niel had to work harder to win points. After holding serve he broke immediately and with that boost of confidence he suddenly found more of the game that he had been executing in practice over the last few days. Toby went on to win 6 games in a row from *1-5 down and despite some tight moments when Da-niel made a couple of bad calls, Toby kept his nerve and took the set on his 5^th set point after 1 hour 10 minutes.

Once that set was under his belt Toby relaxed a little more while at the same time Da-niel’s game started to deteriorate and his unforced error count started to climb considerably. Toby went on to take the set 6-0 in just over 20 minutes and I would say that the second set was as much to do with Toby breaking Dan-niel’s spirits after the first set as it was to do with the actual tennis played!

After the match Toby was disappointed with the level he had produced but we agreed that the most important thing was that he had fought very hard through some very tough times and now he’s still alive to fight another day. He’s also through to the Main Draw of an ITF for the first time since he competed in Namibia last May so there are always positives to take from any match. Toby also said he wanted to get back on court later in the day to improve his level which is great to hear from a player, especially after a tough match and when the easy option would be just to rest and say “I’ll work on my game tomorrow”.

For lunch Benny took us over to the ‘Airport Junction’ Mall where we had a couple of superb pasta dishes at Rhapsody’s before returning to the guesthouse to chill out for a couple of hours.

Benny then picked us up at 4pm to take us back to the club where we had a good 30 minutes of working on specifics from the match this morning before having around 25 minutes of points with Luis Pita from Portugal.

We then headed over to Rodizio’s for dinner and to watch the second half of the Chelsea vs Arsenal game before going back to the club to check out the Main Draw:

It was then finally back to the guesthouse to wind down and get everything ready for Toby’s 1^st round tomorrow.

Schedule for tomorrow:

Mpho Mbizo (BOT) (UNR) vs (Q) Toby Huffer (GBR) (UNR) – 1^st match at 9am

Saturday 25^th April 2015

It was a good final day of training today and after a relaxing afternoon we’re now all set for Toby’s first match tomorrow.

We decided to follow the same routine as yesterday so we were up for breakfast at 8am and then got to the club just before 9.30am. There were a lot more players on site this morning and so it was a little more difficult to get a full court to practice on but after going through a thorough warm-up we managed to secure half a court from 10-10.30am and then a full court from 10.30-12pm. We were also able to get some tournament balls to practice with as there haven’t been any available for the last two day and they actually made quite a difference at this altitude.

During the session we worked on a few specific areas of Toby’s game to make sure he was sharp and ready to compete tomorrow and then put everything together with a lot of points at the end. While we were training the Botswana Defence Force were marking 38 years of service with a display at the National Stadium which is situated behind the tennis centre:

The display also included a military fly over:

As well as a very fast fly-by from Botswana’s answer to the British Red Arrows (yesterday they scared the life out of us but this time we were ready for them!):

Check out the video on the Facebook page – www.Facebook.com/itctennis1

After training we cooled down, showered and changed and got Benny to drive us to Riverwalk Mall where we had lunch and then went to the cinema to see ‘Run All Night’ with Liam Neeson – good film and definitely worth a watch but very much a typical Liam Neeson film!

We decided to have an early dinner after the film but as Rodizio wasn’t open until 6pm we had to settle for ‘Mug and Bean’ which was definitely not up to the level we were looking for – it was still ok but only once you had got past the layers of cheese on everything!!

It was then back to the guesthouse to relax for the evening and get prepared for Toby’s match tomorrow.

Schedule for tomorrow:

Toby Huffer (GBR) (UNR) vs Da-niel Kotze (RSA) (UNR) – 1^st match at 10am

Friday 24^th April 2015

We had our first full training day at the National Tennis Centre in Gaborone today but at one stage we thought some fighter jets were going to put a stop to it!

We were up for breakfast at the guesthouse at 8am this morning and then Benny arrived shortly before 9am to take us to the club. We were expecting more players to be there but apart from some junior coaching that was on a couple of the courts the rest were free for practice.

Once we had gone through our own warm-up routines we played our regular couple of games of ‘bounce’ to get moving and then went to the back of the court to warm up our groundstrokes. The majority of this morning’s session was focussed around getting used to the altitude again – it’s not as high here as it will be in Windhoek next week but it’s still just over 1,000m above sea level which does have an effect on the ball. Yesterday when we started practicing we had brand new balls which meant the courts felt a lot more bouncy but now they have worn a little it’s much easier to control the ball. Toby and I trained for just over an hour and a half and managed to get a lot of points played too which definitely helped to get used to the altitude in match conditions.

After the session we showered and changed (pretty much in the dark as they have to limit the amount of electricity used!) and then Benny drove us to Riverwalk Mall so we could get some lunch. We went back to the Brazilian restaurant where we had dinner last night and had the same pasta dishes too! Benny then drove us back to the club for our second practice of the day.

As we walked onto court this afternoon I thought I recognised the guy hitting on the court next to us and as we got closer it turned out to be Mark Petchey who was having a break away from his Sky Sports commentary role to spend the week with his daughter who is playing the ITF. I’ve met Mark a couple of times before and we had a quick chat before we both carried on with our own sessions.

It was another really good practice from Toby and when we went into points he was making life very difficult for me! During the session we noticed that there were a lot of military planes flying around the tennis centre and later found out that they were just practicing for a big show that’s happening tomorrow. At one stage, just as we were in the middle of a point, 3 fighter jets shot directly above our heads. The noise was so loud that it felt as though they were right on top of us and it actually made us both duck!! I’m sure I won that point but we decided to play a let as I think we both closed our eyes! It would have been great to get some pictures but hopefully I’ll get some tomorrow.

We finished around 4.15pm and then Toby signed-in for Qualifying but it still seemed as though there weren’t many players around. We knew that there would not be a girl’s Qualifying draw but we still expected at least 15-20 boys to be signing in.

When we were finished we headed back to the guesthouse to relax for an hour before heading back to the Mall for dinner. We did look at a couple of the other restaurants but Toby decided to go back to Rodizio … I had to change up my dinner as I didn’t fancy pasta again but Toby went for the same dish for the third meal in a row!

Once we got back to the guesthouse the draw was out:

Toby doesn’t play tomorrow as he has a Bye so we’re going to have a light training day so that he’s 100% fresh for Sunday.

Thursday 23^rd April 2015

With the sun now shining in England (well … at least some of the time!) we can officially say summer is on its way and that leads us into one of my best periods of the year – the transition between indoor and outdoor tennis. It’s great for the players to be finally training outdoors after such a long period indoors and this is the time when some really good game development can occur. Gone are the training sessions or matches where points are won or lost after 2 or 3 shots and now we move into having to work harder, fight harder and be more disciplined to win points, games, sets and matches.

Having returned from Barbados a few weeks ago, Toby Huffer and I have been to LTA tournaments in Nottingham, Cambridge and North London and after training at the start of this week we are now in Botswana for the Grade 5 U18 ITF.

We travelled across London together (during rush hour but that was mainly because Toby missed a train!) yesterday afternoon and arrived at Heathrow Terminal 2 at about 5.30pm. We then checked-in, got some dinner and relaxed before our 10 hour 45 minute flight to Johannesburg. After doing some detective work before we boarded I managed to find the only 2 rows on the plane that had 4 empty seats so Toby and I positioned ourselves there and both had a solid 9 hours sleep!

Once we arrived in Johannesburg we had a short stopover of just over 2 hours before our next flight to Gaborone in Botswana. We were only on a very small plane and often the plane was bouncing around a bit in the turbulence but I don’t remember any of it as I was asleep again!

After clearing immigration and collecting our bags we were met by our driver for the week called Benny. Originally we were supposed to be staying at the Athletes Village but a few days ago the tournament director called me to say they’ve moved us to a guesthouse and given us a personal driver for the week – couldn’t really argue with that could we?!

Benny drove us to the guesthouse which is about 15-20 minutes from the club but he told us the driving time does depend on how many goats there are on the road – any we thought he was joking!!

After some lunch at the local Mall we headed to the club where it was great to see all of the courts packed with young junior players training / competing together. I’m not sure what format they were following but they were all getting very pumped up during the points and, by the looks of things, having a great time too!

Toby and I warmed up from 4.30-5pm then had a good first practice from 5-6pm where we were joined by UK based but Canadian national, Lee Sadler. We met Lee in Barbados when he was there with Dukes Meadows coach Harry Skinner and even though he’s not on the entry list for this week he’s decided to come out anyway and sign in.

Once we were done on court we showered and changed before Benny took us back to the Mall where we had dinner in Rodizio – a Brazilian restaurant famous in Gaborone for its meat platters but we had two very good pasta dishes instead.

From there it was back to ‘Mamas Guesthouse’ to unpack and get ready for training and signing in for Qualifying tomorrow.