Tuesday 24th November 2015

It was a good day at the National Tennis Centre here in Nassau today and after a couple of close doubles matches in the last few weeks, Toby got a well-deserved win on the board.

As Toby and Lee Sadler were scheduled for first match at 9am today we followed the same routine as yesterday which saw us at breakfast at 6.20am and then in a taxi to the tennis centre at 7.10am. Toby and I then warmed up and had a good session for around 45 minutes which included our normal warm-up as well as lots of cross court hitting, specific work on half-volleys and first volleys and also specific doubles serving points.

After the session Toby had just under 15 minutes to get changed and have a brief chat with Lee about their tactics for the match before they went on at 9am to face Pedro Batistella from Brazil and Zaharlije-Zak Talic from Australia.

Toby served first at the start of the match and after a tight game he held serve on a Sudden Death Deuce point. Toby and Lee broke in the next game with some very good doubles play and then Lee held serve well to secure at strong 3-0* lead. The next few games went with serve and neither pair struggled to hold but at *4-2 Lee had to dig very deep on his own serve to save break points before holding to Deuce. At 5-2 our boys were looking very confident and even though they hadn’t played together before, they looked very much like they had. Zak held at 5-2 but Toby produced his best service game of the set to hold to Love to take the first set 6-3.

Having been a little flat during the first set Pedro and Zak got themselves fired up from the very first point of the second set and that resulted in them controlling the net a lot more. At *1-2 the set was still on-serve but Lee struggled during his service game and, despite saving a break point, he double faulted on the Deuce point to hand Pedro and Zak the break. Toby and Lee continued to play some good doubles in the second set and actually posted better stats than in the first set but they weren’t able to get the break back and eventually lost the set 6-3.

As I’ve said many times in my Blogs the Match Tie-break is a bit of a lottery and a lot depends on which pair takes their opportunities first. Toby and Lee came out from the change of ends at the end of the second set and showed good energy from the start of the breaker. They took a 2-0* lead but Pedro and Zak fought back to level the tie-break at 2-2. Unfazed by the mini-break back, Toby and Lee responded by winning the next 5 points in a row to take a 7-2* lead and at this stage they looked by far the better team. The 7-2* lead was extended to *9-3 and even though Pedro and Zak managed to win the next two points, Toby and Lee finished the match in style with a good cross at the net to take the win 6-3, 3-6, 10-5.

Both boys were very pleased with the win especially after they both had difficult losses yesterday in the singles.

After the match we headed back to the hotel to get some lunch but a couple of hours later we were back in a taxi heading over to the tennis centre for a practice session from 2-3pm. By this time the wind had really picked up which made the training even more challenging. It was still a good session and gave us another opportunity to develop Toby’s doubles game.

For dinner tonight we headed to the Cilantro – the Mexican restaurant at the hotel but after waiting for an hour for a couple of small burritos and a thimble full of rice we went downstairs to the buffet at The Market Place for a second course!

The hotel had a Caribbean evening on tonight in the lobby so after stretching out in the gym we got involved in the evenings entertainment!

Schedule for tomorrow:

Toby Huffer (GBR) & Lee Sadler (CAN) vs (3) Ryan Goetz (USA) & Adam Neff (USA) – 5th match after 9am

Monday 23rd November 2015

It wasn’t the result we were hoping for today as Toby went down to 3rd seen Ryan Goetz from America in straight sets.

We were up early and at breakfast this morning by 6.20am and even though they didn’t officially open until 6.30am we managed to slip in without too much fuss. We were then packed up and ready to leave the hotel at 7.10am but we had to get a taxi to the tennis centre as the first shuttle bus wasn’t scheduled until 7.30am.

When we arrived the courts were still a little wet from the overnight rain but the tournament staff did a good job of clearing most of the water so that we could hit from 8-8.30am. Toby was looking very focussed during the session and was hitting well so by the time we finished I was feeling confident about his chances today.

Between 8.30am and 9am we prepared for the match but while the other matches went on court on-time, Toby and Ryan had to wait until 9.30am before the whole court was dry enough for the match to start. When the match did get underway Ryan flew out of the blocks with 3 winners in the first game but Toby remained calm and saved a break point in the next game on his way to holding serve. Toby then played two very good games to break Ryan and then hold his serve again to take a strong 3-1* lead. I always think that playing a seed in the opening round is a good thing as even though they’re seen as better than you on paper, they’re also the ones with the pressure on them and if you can get passed them then your draw can really open up. At *3-2 Toby started to become a little more inconsistent than he had been in the opening 5 games and 11 unforced errors in 2 games completely changed the set resulting in him going *3-4 down. However, despite Ryan breaking Toby’s serve, the set was still ‘on serve’ so there was no reason to panic. Toby had to fight very hard to again fend off 2 break points in the next game but held serve to level the set at 4-4* after a 16 point service game. By this stage Ryan had found a higher level than at the start of the match and after a strong hold of serve he broke Toby to take the first set 6-4.

The first two games of the second set were very close and could have gone either way but after losing both of them Toby began to struggle to stay close to his opponent who by now was full of confidence. From *2-0 up Ryan didn’t miss a single ball for the rest of the set and posted stats of 11 winners and only 5 unforced errors in the whole set to take the match 6-4, 6-0.

Despite the loss there were positives to take from it, especially how Toby played in the first 4 games, but against players of Ryan’s level you have to be on them for the whole duration of the match as once they get into a rhythm they can be tough to beat.

After the match we headed back to the hotel for lunch and then the afternoon was spent going through the video of the match. It’s not often that you’re able to video matches at outdoor tournaments but luckily Toby’s match was on a court close to the clubhouse so I could set the camera up on the balcony. Video analysis is so important at any level of tennis and many players respond better to seeing themselves play rather than just getting verbal feedback from a coach.

For dinner this evening we once again had a reservation at Aqua and during the meal the doubles draw came out:

Unusually the doubles match tomorrow is on at 9am so after having a stretch out in the gym this evening we headed back to the rooms to get an early night.

Schedule for tomorrow:

Pedro Batistella (BRA) & Zaharlije-Zak Talic (AUS) vs Toby Huffer (GBR) & Lee Sadler (CAN) – 1st match at 9am

Sunday 22nd November 2015

Toby Huffer and I had a long day of travel yesterday as we made our way from London to the small island of the Bahamas in the Caribbean. After the 10 hour flight we got to the hotel at around 4pm and then managed to use one of the tennis courts in a neighbouring hotel to hit on for a little while before it got dark!

This morning when we woke up at 6am the weather was looking nice and we were looking forward to a full day of training but when we arrived at the National Tennis Centre the sky suddenly turned rather dark! We managed to go through our full physical warm up and hit for around 30 minutes before a big storm hit us.

Rather than wait 2 hours for the next shuttle bus we decided to call a taxi with four other players and head back to the hotel. When we arrived we went straight into the gym to go through Toby’s travelling programme and despite not being able to do as much as we wanted on court this morning we still felt as though we’d put in a good mornings training.

At 11am we walked out of the gym and much to Toby’s delight he was able to watch the whole of the Tottenham vs West Ham game before we met up again for lunch.

When I first looked into booking the hotel the tournament were quoting a rate that was for room only but for just $3 more I managed to get a deal direct with the hotel to include all of our meals and drinks – sometimes it is worth spending the extra time to see if any special deals are available!

Breakfast and lunch at the hotel are in the Market Place restaurant which is a buffet but for dinner you can either book one of the other 6 restaurants or you can go for the buffet again. Last night we had the buffet (as all of the restaurants were fully booked) which was very average so today I booked up all the restaurants we thought we might use for the whole week.

At 3.15pm we got the second shuttle bus of the day over to the club and then had a rain-free training session from 4.15 – 5.30pm. The courts out here are quite bouncy but as we’re at sea level we don’t have any altitude to deal with which makes it much easier to adjust to the conditions. Out here in the Caribbean they also tend to use Penn tennis balls which are a little lighter than the normal Wilson US Open or Head ATP balls that are often used in ITF events. That is something else that takes a little adjustment but after an hour or two you soon get used to them.

At 5.30pm Toby was asked by the referee to be a player representative for the draw which was good as we got to see who he was playing straight after the draw was made rather than have to wait all evening for the draw to be released!

We then got a taxi back to the hotel and got ready for a superb dinner in Aqua – the Italian restaurant at the hotel that we couldn’t get into last night!

Schedule for tomorrow:

Toby Huffer (GBR) (1588) vs (3) Ryan Goetz (USA) (618) – 1st match at 9am