Saturday 26th May 2012

Dave got the second week here in Mersin underway today with a solid win over John “The Grinder” Valenti and a potential banana skin was avoided!

It can sometimes be a little tricky to plan when to eat for matches that are in the middle of the day as you have to try and schedule food between the warm up and the start of the match so that you’ve got enough food in your system to last the whole match. Dave’s match today was 2nd on after 10am so we decided to have breakfast at 7.45am and warm up in the gym at 8.50am ready for a 9.30am practice on court. That then meant that Dave could get some more food from breakfast just as the match before his was starting.

That plan worked well as the match before Dave’s lasted about an hour and 45 minutes so it gave him time to let the food go down while we went through our pre-match talk, set goals and go through a thorough warm up before he was called. Today Dave was up against John Valenti, the self named “Grinder” who is a bit of a journey man around the Futures but can often be a little tricky, especially on the clay.

The first game was a bit of a grind as Dave was a bit cautious and John was making sure he made each point hard work for Dave to win. After holding serve in the first game Dave stepped up his level and started to dictate the play more which resulted in him taking a 5-0 lead. John then held serve but Dave served well to take the first set 6-1.

The second set followed the same pattern as the first but Dave found a much more aggressive level from the start and moved forwards to finish more points at the net to eliminate his opponent’s main tactic of grinding! Dave had 2 match points on serve at 5-0 but a lapse of concentration cost him his serve for the first time as John kept fighting hard for each point. Dave responded well and broke straight back to take the match 6-1, 6-1 in just over an hour. It’s always tough to play an opponent who doesn’t give you much pace, especially one that you’re expected to beat but Dave performed well mentally and put in a professional performance throughout the match to get the job done.

After the match we went straight onto the practice court to get the slow match level out of Dave’s system and getting him hitting a more realistic and heavier ball. We only spent around 15 minutes on court but it gave us a chance to work on some specifics from the match while we increased Dave’s hitting level to what’s going to be needed for his next match.

It was then time to go back to the hotel to shower and change before getting some lunch and going through the match in detail. Once we’d finished we went into the gym for a long cool down and stretch out to make sure Dave doesn’t have any tightness tomorrow when he plays his next round.

We returned to the club late in the afternoon to watch a good performance from Jamie Feaver and Daniel Glancy as they took a 7-6(5), 6-3 win in the doubles final – nice to see a fellow Brit taking home a trophy!

Dinner tonight was the Italian buffet again which was perfect for Dave to keep the Carbohydrates up during the event but it was a challenge for me not to eat too much – the coach always has to watch how much they eat when they’re away or they could end up putting in a huge amount of weight!!

Today was my last day as I have to return home tomorrow from Adana to Istanbul and then Istanbul to London which means I won’t get a chance to see Dave’s last round of qualifying match but I know he’s 100% ready to qualify for the main draw.

Schedule for tomorrow:

(2) Daniiar Duldaev (KZG) (838) vs Dave Hodgetts (GBR) (UNR) – 1st match at 11am

Friday 25th May 2012

Today marks the start of the second Men’s $10k event here in Mersin, Turkey and our final day of preparation before the qualifying starts tomorrow.

We had started to taper down the training yesterday and today was an even lighter day as we wanted to make sure Dave is 100% physically and mentally ready before he plays his first round match. Even though Dave didn’t see it that way, we did have a bit of a lie in this morning as we met for breakfast at 8am – it was definitely a lie in compared to the 6.30am breakfasts we’d had on the last 4 days!! By 9.30am we were on court warming up for a speed session which was programmed for the day before Dave’s next match. The session included 38 different sprints and lasted about 35 minutes but due to the fact that speed work has to be done at a maximum intensity the work rest ratio was around 1:8.

After the session we returned to the hotel to shower and change before going back to the tennis club for a nice Turkish lunch – all week we’ve been having pasta for lunch but over the last few days we’ve experimented more with the menu and found that some of the chicken wraps and meat kebabs are extremely nice and also very healthy!

We had a couple of hours to rest in the afternoon before it was back in the gym at 1.30pm to warm up for our on court session at 2pm. The weather has been turning a little over the last few days; the temperature has been dropping and the wind has been picking up but today had to be the windiest day by far. We still managed to have a very good hour and a half session which was only interrupted by the groundstaff having to water the court to stop the clay blowing everywhere including in our eyes! During the session we went through everything in Dave’s game so that he was feeling good before his first match, we then played three sets of points up to 11 from the back of the court before ending the session by working on serve and return.

It was then straight back to the gym in the hotel to cool down and have a very thorough stretch out to make sure Dave’s feeling fresh and loose in the morning. Just after 6pm we went back down to the club to check out the draw and the order of play for tomorrow:

Tonight saw the return of the “Italian Buffet” for dinner at the hotel and we’d both been looking forward to it all week! We both had some great fresh pasta cooked in front of us by the Head Chef and this week I managed to get a picture of him preparing it:

For our evening entertainment we put together a bit of a “Superstars” event: 1 game of air hockey, 2 games of bowling, 6 games of pool and 1 game of darts! I lead after the air hockey, Dave came back and beat me in both games of bowling but I produced a great display of pool winning 5 out of the 6 frames and then finished off the evening with a win in the darts to take the overall victory!

It was then back to the hotel to prepare for Dave’s match tomorrow and get an early night.

Schedule for tomorrow:

John Valenti (USA) (UNR) vs Dave Hodgetts (GBR) (UNR) – 2nd match after 10am