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Nairobi U18 ITF Grade 4, Day 8

Thursday 31st January 2013

It was Alex’s turn today to get a win on the board while both Holly and Anais struggled in their doubles ¼ final matches.

Our plan today was to get up early for a 7am breakfast and then hit at 8am but when we got to the courts to warm up at 7.40am we found that the overnight rain had completely soaked the courts and we were told there would be no play before 10am. We returned to the clubhouse to relax and then made our way back over to warm up at 9.30am but when we got there the courts were in the same state as before! Eventually we were told that play would start around 11am and the players would have a longer warm up (as there weren’t any practice court available) so all of the players went through their physical warm ups expecting to be 1st on but the referee then changed the schedule so that the singles matches could start first. That meant that we had a bit of time to kill and rather than stopping the players during their warm up I let them finish and then took them through a speed and movement session for 10-15 minutes.

Anais, Jay, Alex and Holly (on the steps!) during the movement session today

After the session the players got some food and then watched some of the main draw singles matches before it was time for them to go on. Holly was first on with partner Maria Ong and they were facing a bit of an uphill battle as when play was suspended yesterday they were 5-3 down with Nelise Verster serving for the set. When they resumed play Nelise and Dona Abo Habaga held serve and then continued to put pressure on Holly and Maria as they took a 2-0* lead in the second set. Maria then held serve and Holly held well at *1-3 but both of them really struggled with their returns only managing to return 5 serves in total in the whole set. Despite trying to take on as much as she could and doing her very best to cover as much of the net as possible Holly wasn’t able to stop Nelise and Dona from targeting Maria with a lot of balls. After Maria was broken at *2-4 Dona held serve to take the second set and the match 6-3, 6-2. Holly was disappointed with the loss but knew that it was always going to be difficult with an inexperienced partner so now the hunt begins for a new partner for next week!

Whilst Holly was on court Alex went on for his next consolation match and to his credit he prepared very professionally completing his pre-match sheet and talking to me about his goals before he went on. The consolation today was only 1 set so it was important that Alex started well and kept his focus throughout. He did just that and cruised through the set 6-1 against a player who had been in the main draw this week which will hopefully give him a good boost for qualifying of week 2 on Saturday. Alex will now play one more consolation match tomorrow to try and fine tune his game and then we might have a second session in the afternoon if he feels as though he needs it.

Anais and Alena were next on at 2pm and were immediately facing two set points when the match resumed at *4-5, *30-40. They ended up losing the next point but after almost completely turning the 1st set around yesterday they knew what they needed to do today and consequently they started the 2nd set really well racing to a 4-0 lead. The Belgians weren’t about to roll over though and after one of them had already won her singles semi-final earlier in the day they both fought hard to get back into the set. It was looking comfortable at 5-1* but then Alena struggled in her service game and after their opponents held serve it was up to Anais to serve for the set at *5-4. The nerves that had been apparent in her singles match yesterday were not bothering Anais today and she held well to take the 2nd set and level the match. Now match tie-breaks can often be a bit of a lottery and if you can get a bit of a lead at the start it can be tough for the opponents to come back, unfortunately it was the Belgians that took a 5-0 lead and they never once looked like giving it up as they eventually went on to take it 10-4. Anais and Alena just didn’t play well enough when it really mattered but on another day they could have easily won that match in straight sets.

Having not had time for lunch due to trying to keep on top of what was happening with the re-scheduling of the matches I sat down with Alex and Holly at around 3pm to get some food before it was back over to the courts to be on court with Holly from 4.30-5.30pm. Holly is still maintaining a great level of hitting and it seems as though the work that she did back in Halton with Mike James before we came out has really sunk in. She’s added a very important dimension to her game and hopefully she will build on that over the next few months to get her ready for the summer.

When we were done we cooled down and then headed back to the hotel to shower and change before dinner. We had hoped to join the team from the Bath International High Performance Centre who had landed from England this morning but they all went for the pasta buffet in the other restaurant. It’ll be good to train alongside those boys this week and it’s good to see “newbie” coach Jamie Feaver on the road as his professionalism and wealth of playing experience will be a huge asset for the boys.

Schedule for tomorrow:

Shabani Kabura (BDI) (UNR) vs Alex Hagon (GBR) (UNR) – 3rd match after 9am

Nairobi U18 ITF Grade 4, Day 7

Wednesday 30th January 2013

It was a tough day at the Nairobi Sports Club today as Anais had a disappointing singles match but the quest for a title in week 1 is still alive as both Holly and Anais are still in the doubles ¼ finals.

We were all up early this morning for breakfast at 7am as Anais was first match on at 9am and Holly and Alex needed to warm up for their matches later in the day. We trained on court from 8-8.30am and despite every court being full on the booking sheet we managed to get a whole court each to warm up on! I trained with Alex while Holly and Anais hit together and after 30 minutes everyone was hitting well and ready for their matches.

After going through her pre-match goals and setting out her tactics for the match Anais went on court at 9am to face 8th seed Sasha Alexander from Australia. Holly had lost to Sasha in round 2 so we knew exactly what to expect; a big first serve, a spiny second serve but she can be quite inconsistent from the back of the court.

Anais started very nervously and after Sasha held in the opening game she struggled with her serve resulting in four double faults in her first service game. Anais then was 40-0* up in the very next game but failed to convert any of her break points and from that moment Sasha turned into a completely different player; she was much more confident from the back of the court and her 1st serve suddenly became very consistent. Anais managed to hold at *0-3 and then get a break back at 1-5* but too many unforced errors and not enough winners cost her as Sasha took the first set 6-2 with a total of 13 winners.

To her credit Anais came out in the 2nd set and was much more aggressive but by this stage Sasha’s confidence was very high and she was making a lot less unforced errors compared to when she played Holly. Anais went 0-2* down but managed to break back straight away only to struggle again in her own service games and give the break up. Anais was still struggling with her consistency and couldn’t quite get hold of the ball enough from the back of the court to put Sasha under pressure but she kept fighting hard throughout. After holding serve at *2-5 Anais made Sasha serve it out which she ended up doing very well to take the match 6-2, 6-3.

It was definitely a disappointing performance from Anais but she’s not one to dwell on a bad match and almost immediately after she’d finished she was back on court hitting some serves to get ready for her doubles ¼ final.

After getting some lunch together Holly and Anais were back on court with their partners at 1pm – Anais was playing for the first time with Alena Mashtakova from Russia who I met back in November in Mombasa and after winning a tight match yesterday Holly and Maria were set to take on the number 1 seeds. The difficulty was that Holly was on Centre court while Anais was on court 8 so I had to position myself on the top of one of the stands to Centre court so that I could see both courts!

Anais & Alena on court 8 …

… and Holly and Maria behind them on Centre court!

As both matches started the wind really began to pick up making conditions very difficult and both of our pairs struggled. They both went 1-4 down before both starting a bit of a fight back; Anais and Alena held, broke and then held again to level the scores and then the set went with serve until *4-5 when a huge storm came over to stop play. Holly and Maria also started coming back and after Maria managed to hold serve at *2-5 things were beginning to look much more promising – they ended up stopping at 3-5*, 15-15*.

The view of the rain flooding down from the referee’s hut

As the rain came hammering down we all rushed to the referee’s hut and then were kept there for 20 minutes before Patrick decided the courts weren’t going to dry so he suspended play for the day. Poor Alex had been eagerly waiting to go on for his consolation match just as the storm started so unfortunately he wasn’t able to play his match today but he will get on tomorrow.

The rest of the afternoon was spent stocking up on supplies at the supermarket, changing up money and sorting out the food bills at the hotel but as always there was time for some cards!! Like I said yesterday the forfeits are starting to get quite extreme so here’s a couple of the ones from today:

Holly always ends up getting the bad ones (I was in the final 2 though!)

But Yasmine’s was pretty special too!

The video of Yasmine’s immense knee slide is up on the Facebook page so check it out! www.facebook.com/itctennis1

Once we’d all recovered we headed out to dinner with the ever increasing “team” for a great dinner together.

Schedule for tomorrow:

(1) Dona Abo Habaga (EGY) & Nelise Verster (RSA) vs Holly Hutchinson (GBR) & Maria Ong (PHI) – 1st match at 9am (to finish 5-3, 15-15)

Margaux Bovy (BEL) & Nina Van Oost (BEL) vs (2) Alena Mashtkova (RUS) & Anais Nussaume (THA) – To Be Arranged after rest (to finish 5-4, 40-30)

Both winners to play later in the day

Alex Hagon (GBR) (UNR) vs John Lutaaya (UGA) (UNR) – 2nd match after 9am

 

Nairobi U18 ITF Grade 4, Day 6

Tuesday 29th January 2013

We had one win today, one loss and one very good training day – all in all a pretty good effort from the whole team.

We had a more relaxed start today as Holly wasn’t scheduled until 4th on and Alex had to wait for a match to be completed before he could play his consolation match. That meant the players could have a much needed lie in and so we met for breakfast at 8.45am. After breakfast Anais and I went to the local bank to change some money and then it was back to the hotel to meet up with Alex and Holly to go to the club to warm up. Our morning session today was from 10.30 – 11am but we managed to stay on the court a little longer and because Ricky had joined us for the session it meant we could do some really good doubles specific work while I worked with both teams.

Once we were done it was time to visit the local supermarket to stock up on more water (Anais drank over 8 litres yesterday!) before returning to the club to watch some of the main draw matches.

Alex was next on for his second training session of the day; he hit with Alexis Canter for an hour and found a really good level despite the terrible condition of the practice courts. The boys worked hard during the drills that we did and then they finished the session with a very close match tie-break where Alexis just scraped it in the end 11-9.

Alex and Alexis training today

The session finished around 1pm which gave me just about enough time to grab some lunch before Holly went on for her doubles at just after 1.30pm. Because of the mix up with Holly’s original doubles partner she teamed up with Maria Ong from the Philippines to take on Mariam Mujawaimana from Burundi and Nidhi Surapaneni from India. We knew it was going to be a tough match as Nidhi is in the ¼ finals of the singles and Holly’s partner had struggled in the main draw. Holly and Maria broke in the first game and then went on to take a 3-0 lead after a couple of sudden death deuce points before Maria was broken in the next game. The girl’s didn’t let that distract them and broke back straight away but when Holly was broken in the very next game they lost their way resulting in losing the next 2 games in a row. At *4-3 it was looking very tight but after Maria held her serve for the first time and then Holly served well to hold at 5-4 they took the first set 6-4. In total there had been 6 sudden death deuces and our girls took 5 of them!

The second set started the same as the first but at 3-0 up Maria lost her serve poorly and then Holly was broken at *3-2 which eventually lead to the girls losing a total of 6 games in a row; going from 3-0 up to 6-3 down. It was a poor set from Holly and Maria but to their credit they bounced back in the match tie-break and after a good start never looked back taking it 10-5. Maria was a different player in the match tie-break compared to the second set so hopefully she can bring more of that level to the court for the ¼ final tomorrow.

While Holly was on for her doubles Alex went on for the 1st round of the consolation and he was facing a tough match in Ernest Habiyambere who he had played against yesterday in the singles. I arrived at the court just as Alex had lost the first set; he said he was playing well but had just missed out on quite a few games due to losing the sudden death deuce point. He started well in the second set though and took a 2-1 lead with some good aggressive play from the back of the court. Unfortunately a poor service game at *2-2 and at *2-4 meant that he had a big mountain to climb if he was to turn the set around. As always Alex was up for a fight; he broke in the next game, then held serve well and I thought he was going to level the set at 5-5 but another sudden death deuce didn’t go his way and he ended up going down 6-2, 6-4. Overall he played well and was much more aggressive than he had been previously which was great to see but it’s tough to play against a lot of these guys that are older and stronger than he is. He’s got another match tomorrow though and will keep developing and improving as he prepares for next week.

As soon as Alex was done I was straight on court with Anais at 4pm for her second session of the day. All of the girls in the singles ¼ finals had a rest day and as Anais had a bye in the doubles it meant it was just a day of practice for her. We had a very good practice for just over an hour and even the downpour of rain didn’t stop us, in fact it made the court even better! We worked on the specifics that Anais would need to implement tomorrow which included me having to bang down loads of serves to match the pace that the tall Australian serves at – hard work but well worth it.

After cooling down and stretching out everyone returned to the hotel together to change before dinner. We had a time-out from the forfeits last night but tonight they were back with a vengeance and one of the best was Alex doing an Olympic-style torch procession with our table candle around the restaurant and swimming pool!!

Not quite the Olympic Flame but the best we could do!!

Schedule for tomorrow:

(8) Sasha Alexander (AUS) (1127) vs (2) Anais Nussaume (THA) (458) – 1st match at 9am

(1) Dona Abo Habaga (EGY) & Nelise Verster (RSA) vs Holly Hutchinson (GBR) & Maria Ong (PHI) – 3rd match after 9am, not before 12pm

Margaux Bovy (BEL) & Nina Van Oost (BEL) vs (2) Alena Mashtkova (RUS) & Anais Nussaume (THA) – 3rd match after 9am, not before 12pm

Boy’s consolation to be arranged as players become available.

Nairobi U18 ITF Grade 4, Day 5

Monday 28th January 2013

It was a day of mixed emotions today as Anais came through a hard fought match with a win while Alex had a tight loss in the doubles and Holly went down in the 2nd round of singles.

As there were byes in the boy’s singles draw Alex had another chance of sign in as a Lucky Loser but last night he wasn’t sure if it was worth getting up so early to do so especially as he had a doubles match scheduled for later in the day. I left the decision up to him and before we went to bed he decided that he would do it as he still had a very small chance of getting in. That meant we met for breakfast this morning at 7am, warmed up at 7.40am and then were on the court hitting by 8am. We had a really good 30 minutes on court and playing at that time is probably the best time of day as the courts have just been rolled and the temperature is quite cool. Alex then signed in while I walked to the supermarket to get some water for both of us but I didn’t realise that I’d be waiting an hour and 20 minutes for the shop to open! While I was waiting I got a call from Anais asking me to get the girls some water so in the end I walked back to the club with 25 litres!!

At 10am the girls arrived at the courts to warm up before our practice session from 10.30-11am. Both girls were hitting very well; as I said before Anais has been looking very comfortable from day 1 but now she’s starting to step up and be a lot of aggressive and Holly is just going from strength to strength each day as her new found patient game style is looking extremely good. After the session we watched some of Jay’s match with Ricky and then it was a case of sitting and waiting for everyone’s matches to go on while making sure all the players were well fuelled and had gone through their pre-match preparations.

Anais and Alex were both on at just before 2.30pm; Anais was taking on Emmanuelle De Beer from Mauritius on court 1 while Alex was a few courts further away on court 4 with his doubles partner Olivier Havugimana from Rwanda.

After the first couple of games in Anais’ match we knew it was going to be a tough one but I didn’t expect the first 6 games to all go against serve! Anais had started nervously which was expected as she hasn’t competed a lot recently and the other girl had already played a match yesterday  but at *3-3 she held serve and started to settle down. The quality of the set wasn’t quite up the level that Anais has been training at but she fought really hard against a tough player and at *5-5 she held serve well and then managed to break Emmanuelle’s serve on her 8th set point!! The set had taken an hour and 20 minutes but as I’ve been saying to the guys all week if you’re prepared to work hard and stay in the rally you will get results out here.

The 2nd set was just as close as the first with most of the games going to deuce but Anais played well at the right times and ended up taking the set 6-0; a flattering scoreline but it wasn’t as easy as it looks! Anais was really pleased with the win, she knows it wasn’t her best performance but she’s now got that elusive 1st match under her belt so now she can relax more and improve as the week goes on.

Anais celebrating her 2nd round win

Alex and Oliver had finished their match by the time Anais had just started her 2nd set and unfortunately they went down 7-6(3), 6-2. Alex was frustrated at the end of the match as he felt as though it was definitely a match they could have won but he was pleased with the way that he played and the fact that he achieved his doubles goals more than he did in Austria. It’s another match at this level for Alex and with each match he gains more experience which is only going to help him develop more as a player. He now has the consolation starting tomorrow which will prepare him perfectly for the qualifying of the second event on Saturday.

We weren’t sure if Holly’s match was actually going to go on as some matches were talking a long time to complete but in the end her match was moved onto court 1 after Anais had finished and so at 4.45pm she went on to face 8th seed Sasha Alexander from Australia. Unlike Anais’ match both girls held their serves at the start of the match and it looked as though their serves would be the dominating part of the game. Sasha in particular had a very big 1st serve but Holly knew that if she could neutralise it then she’d be able to take control in the baseline rallies. After starting really well Holly was broken at *2-3 and from there until she lost the set 6-2 she seemed to lose belief that she could beat the Australian. Sasha did have a big serve which was tough to return but she only made 7 in the entire 1st set and Holly did have break points at 2-2*.

Holly ripping a forehand during her match

After a toilet break Holly came out in the 2nd set and looked much more confident; she started to stand a little further back on Sasha’s 2nd serve to allow the spin to come off of the ball which made it easier to return and she also stepped up more during the rally to take control leading to more winners. Unfortunately though Holly was really struggling with her serve and after being broken again at *2-3 her unforced error count increased significantly resulting in her going down 6-2, 6-2. It was a tough result to take and as Holly put it “the consistency of the serving was the only difference” which was spot on. It’s another experience though and the most impressive thing was that even though Holly was frustrated with the way the match was going she maintained a fantastic discipline in every game which is a huge improvement from Austria.

By the time we had finished it was almost 6.30pm so while Holly went off to cool down and stretch out the other two players went to book practice and check out what time they are playing tomorrow.

For dinner tonight we were joined by Alexis Canter and his dad at the Fairview Hotel where we probably had the best meal of the trip – Mango Chicken was definitely the winner!

All of the Brits at dinner (some smiling more than others!!)

Schedule for tomorrow:

Holly Hutchinson (GBR) & Maria Ong (PHI) vs Mariam Mujawaimana (BDI) & Nidhi Surapaneni (IND) – 4th match on after 9am

Boy’s consolation to be arranged as players become available.

Nairobi U18 ITF Grade 4, Day 4

Sunday 27th January 2013

It was a very positive day for the whole team today as Holly got a win, Alex squeezed his way into the doubles and Anais had another very good day of practice before she opens her campaign tomorrow.

The day started very early for Alex and I as we needed to get to breakfast at 7am so that we could get over to the courts to warm up and be ready to hit on court at 8am in case Alex managed to get into the main draw as a Lucky Loser. Alex was originally 11th Lucky Loser but we thought we’d still give it a go as he was going to be onsite for the whole day anyway. In the end only 3 boys signed in for a Lucky Loser spot but unfortunately no-one pulled out – there’s always tomorrow though as the seeds got byes today.

I came back to the hotel just after 9.30am to meet up with the girls who had just finished breakfast and then we made our way back over to the club to watch some of the main draw matches. At 10.45am the girls went through their physical warm ups at the club before we walked the short journey to the Public Service Club to the extra practice courts so that Holly could go through her pre-match hit. The session was going really well until I got a surprise call from Alex at 11.45am saying that Holly’s doubles partner had signed in with another girl and we should come back straight away as we’ve only got 15 minutes to find another partner. Holly was quite rightly very annoyed but after speaking to her original partner she managed to find another girl before the sign in deadline of 12pm.

Holly and Anais warming up before Holly’s 1st round match

After having lunch together the team then went about their own individual work; Alex had two on court session where he warmed up a couple of the players before their matches, Anais spent some time watching the matches before going on court herself while Holly and I went through her pre-match preparations.

At just after 2pm Holly went on to play Maheen Dada from Pakistan who we didn’t know too much about apart from what I’d seen this morning when I watched her hit briefly. After the first couple of games it was obvious that Holly was a much stronger player than Maheen but the most impressive thing was that Holly worked really hard on playing patient, disciplined and smart tennis in every game throughout the match. Holly ended up winning 6-0, 6-0 but the match wasn’t without incident as, at the change of ends at 3-0 in the 2nd set a ball was mishit from the next court, went about 50 feet in the air and landed right on the back of Maheen’s neck! She was in quite a bit of pain following the impact and had to get the physio on to loosen up her neck before she could continue playing.

After the match both Holly and I were really pleased with the way she’d played but she felt as though she needed to do a little work on her serve so I went straight onto the court and spent 15-20 minutes going through a few specifics. When she was happy with her serving level she went off to cool down and stretch out while Anais came onto the court to spend a little time sharpening up on a few areas before she plays tomorrow. Anais and Alex had been playing a practice set while Holly was on court and all Anais now wanted to do was just spend 10-15 minutes playing on the match courts to find a better rhythm. When we finished she was hitting the ball really well and feeling confident ahead of her match.

At around 4.30pm everyone in the team met up again to stretch out and then we headed back to the hotel to relax before dinner. There were no forfeits this evening but we did have some fun when Alex joined in with the local singer which set the whole table off in a fit of laughter.

Schedule for tomorrow:

Emmanuelle De Beer (MRI) (1210) vs (2) Anais Nussaume (THA) (458) – 4th match after 9am

(8) Sasha Alexander (AUS) (1127) vs Holly Hutchinson (GBR) (1607) – 4th match after 9am

(WC) Alex Hagon (GBR) & Oliver Havugimana (RWA) vs Ernest Habiyambere (RWA) & Emanuel Mallya (TAN) – 4th match after 9am

Nairobi U18 ITF Grade 4, Day 3

Saturday 26th January 2013

It was a difficult day for Alex today in his first round qualifying match while the girls put in a good days training to prepare themselves for their main draw matches tomorrow.

Everyone was up and at breakfast by 7.20am this morning so that they had enough time to let the food digest before our warm up started at 8.30am. When we got to the club the courts weren’t ready for play but as I’ve experienced that for the last couple of years I went to go straight to the groundsman and managed to get a court set up by our scheduled practice time of 9am. Hopefully from now on the tournament have told the groundstaff that we need the courts ready at least an hour before play!

Alex hit with Ricky again and, as they both had qualifying matches today, they went through their pre-match warm up while the girls trained on the other half court. Alex was a little erratic to begin with but soon found his rhythm and was looking good by the time we finished the session. While Alex and I left the court to prepare him for his match the girls stayed on and finished off a really good hour of practice; Anais has been comfortable from the first day but Holly’s game has really developed in the last couple of day and, as she put it, “I’m learning to play tennis again!!”

At 10am Alex went on to face local wildcard Kevin Langat and having played Kevin before in Mombasa back in November Alex knew exactly what to expect. Neither player served well at the start of the match which resulted in five breaks of serve and at 2-3* Alex had chances to break back again but didn’t quite take them which resulted in him going 4-2 down. There had been far too many unforced errors coming from Alex throughout the set but when he was serving at *2-4 he gave away 5 cheap points in the game and then Kevin held serve to take the opening set 6-2. It had not been the start that I’d expected from Alex but I think it was just down to Kevin dealing with the court and the conditions much better from the start.

Alex serving during the 1st set

After a toilet break Alex came back and started to play some really good tennis; he served a lot better, was a lot more aggressive and also went for bigger targets on the court which meant his unforced errors count was reduced. Alex held serve in the opening game which gave him and big boost and then at 2-* he had chances to break but Kevin came out with some big winners on the important points to hold serve. Alex responded well to this and at *3-3 it really looked like Alex had taken control of the match but a sloppy game with 3 unforced errors and 0 winners cost him his serve. At *3-5, *40-15 I felt as though there was still a lot left in this match but it was the unforced errors that again cost Alex as he went on to get broken to lose the match 6-2, 6-3.

It’s always disappointing to lose an opening match of a tournament but the level that Alex found in the second set was much better than in Austria and if he can now get into the consolation draw later in the week he’ll get more practice matches which will prepare him really well for the singles next week. Alex still has the chance to get into the doubles tomorrow and he managed to secure a main draw player so fingers crossed that they get lucky.

Alex and I returned to the hotel after the match and had a quick debrief before we sat down with the rest of the team to get some lunch. My attention then turned to Anais who was straight back on court for some drilling and point play with Yasmine Xantos from Australia. Anais has really adjusted well to the surface (which she puts it down to being French!!), she’s now started to step up more and looks really confident coming forwards which I great to see.

The last session of the day was at 3.30pm when Anais and Holly were due to play a practice set but unfortunately they had to share the court. Luckily though they were sharing the court with fellow Brits Jay Clarke and Alexis Canter so after a good warm up we were able to go into a lot of full court points with them. Anais picked up from where she left off during the previous session and played some very solid tennis while Holly showed that the level she found in the morning session was no fluke as she continued to play some very smart, disciplined but aggressive tennis. The session was the best one I’ve seen from the girls which was just what we needed before their main draw matches.

Once everyone had cooled down and stretched I made my way over to the referee’s desk to check the girls had signed in correctly (good job I did eh Holly?!!) and then we headed back to the hotel to change for dinner.

We had another great dinner at the Fairview hotel which included Anais giving our waitress a hug and Holly going down on one knee to give one of the other waiters a flower! Poor Holly gets all the bad forfeits … I’m sure it’ll be the boy’s turn soon though!

Girl’s Main Draw

Schedule for tomorrow:

Holly Hutchinson (GBR) (1607) vs Maheen Dada (PAK) (UNR) – 4th match after 9am (not before 2pm)

Nairobi U18 ITF Grade 4, Day 2

Friday 25th January 2013

It was a good training day today as Alex put the final touches to his preparations before qualifying starts tomorrow and the girls also put in a good full days training as they look to be ready for main draw starting on Sunday.

After a long day yesterday we all had a bit of a lie in and met for breakfast at 8am this morning. Everyone had slept pretty well and were looking up for a good training day so at 9.30am we walked over to the courts to go through our physical warm ups before getting on court just before 10am. The courts were very busy and as there wasn’t a booking procedure in place the team had to split up with the girls taking half of court 1 while Alex hit with fellow Brit Joel Jones on court 4. As Alex is starting in qualifying tomorrow his training was the priority today so I spent most of the morning session with him while keeping an eye on what the girls were doing from a distance! All three players looked much more comfortable this morning and by just after 11am everyone was happy with the level of hitting that they had achieved so we met back up to cool down and stretch out.

Once we were all done we headed back to the clubhouse to get some lunch and then watched some of the fantastic Murray vs Federer match from the Australian Open. Soon enough though it was 2.30pm and time to get back over to the courts for our afternoon session where we’d arranged to play some practice sets. Alex was to take on Ricky Hendler who is from Belgium but based out in Florida with his sister, Tammy, who I know quite well while the girls were going to play a set together. We luckily managed to get two full courts which would have been perfect but Holly’s wrist was getting a little sore after trying to hit more topspin than she’s ever had to hit before (!) so after 30 minutes she stopped and Anais carried on the session with her doubles partner; Alena Mastakova from Russia.

Alex and Ricky had a good set; both of them served well but struggled with their returning games on the bouncy courts but it was ideal preparation for their first round matches tomorrow. Alex took a 5-3 lead but then Ricky played some smart tennis to come back and take the next 4 games to win the set 7-5; overall it was a good set with a lot of positives to take forwards to tomorrow.

Alex serving against Ricky Hendler in their practice set

After the boys were finished Anais and Australian Arki Truscott, who is travelling with Ricky, started to play a set but after 6 games they lost the court so had to stop. By this time it was just after 4.30pm and everyone had put in a great days training so we headed over to the grass area by the side of the court to cool down and stretch out alongside Jay Clarke and his sister Yazmin who have also travelled out from England.

Jay and Yaz joined us for dinner tonight at the Fairview Hotel and witnessed one of the best Chase the Ace forfeits that I think we’ve ever come up with – doing the Gangnam Style dance to the live piano music in the restaurant! Like in Austria when it came to the worst forfeit I somehow managed to end up in the final two (I’m sure these guys are hooking me!) but luckily I chose right and Holly was left with the Ace! She then had the whole meal to sweat about doing it but to her credit she got up and did something that more resembled disco dancing from the ‘70s rather than the Gangnam Style dance – I think I’ll be keeping that video saved in case I ever need to bribe her!!

The Boy’s Qualifying Draw

Schedule for tomorrow:

(WC) Kevin Cheruiyot Langat (KEN) (UNR) vs Alex Hagon (GBR) (UNR) – 1st match at 10am

Winner to play Davide Alberoni (ITA) (UNR) – 2nd match, not before 2pm

Nairobi U18 ITF Grade 4, Day 1

Thursday 24th January 2013

After less than a week at home since the Austria trip it was time to get back on the road for the next two events in Nairobi, Kenya. This is the 3rd year that I’ve been at these tournaments and each year the trip gets better and better so I’m really looking forward to a great couple of weeks.

Yesterday I met up with Alex Hagon at Charing Cross train station at 3.30pm and then we made our way via the underground to Heathrow. It’s normally a very straightforward journey but there were a few delays and we had to change trains a few times which meant we didn’t arrive at Heathrow until just after our scheduled meeting time of 5pm – I absolutely hate being late and after texting Holly Hutchinson at 4.30pm to say there were some problems I could tell she was loving the fact that she was on time and we weren’t!!

The flight left London at 7pm and being the nice coach that I am I managed to get Holly and Alex three seats to themselves so that they could sleep while I struggled in my single seat! It couldn’t believe my eyes when I looked over and saw Alex asleep in the middle seat with the other two seats empty but I didn’t have the heart to wake him up and ask him if he would swap seats so I could have all three!!

We arrived just before 6am local time in Nairobi and then had a bit of a wait for Anais Nussaume who was flying in from Thailand to meet up with us. Once she arrived we met our driver and after an hour of sitting in very slow moving traffic we eventually arrived at the Nairobi Club. One of the best things about these events is that the hotel and the club are on the same site so the players can walk back to their rooms on their own if they need to shower / change or if they forget something (which happens most of the time!).

After catching up on some sleep we all met for lunch at midday and then went through the normal procedure of changing up some money, going to the supermarket and generally getting a good feel for the local area before heading over to the courts to practice at 3pm. The altitude and the bouncy courts always catches the players out here so it was really important to get a good hours practice in even though everyone was still struggling a little from the overnight flight. The first five minutes were very interesting with balls flying all over the place but then all three players settled down and started to feel the ball a little more which resulted in a pretty good session overall.

Holly, Alex and Anais after our 1st training session

After training we all cooled down and stretched out before walking back across the cricket pitch to the hotel to try and shower off all of the clay we had around our ankles!

It’s been a custom over the previous two years to go to the Fairview Hotel for dinner most evenings as they do a really good pasta buffet so I thought I’d take the players there for their first night. Everyone was impressed with the food but it was obvious that tiredness was definitely settling in – can you believe we didn’t play one game of cards through the entire meal?!

After the short 5 minute walk back to the Nairobi Club we all went straight back to our rooms to get an early night ready for a full days training tomorrow.

 

ABOUT I.t.c.

Since 2010 my aim has been to make it more affordable to travel to international tournaments with a coach. Over the past 20 years I have coached players at over 250 international tournaments ranging from U12 Tennis Europe events to a semi-finalist at a Grand Slam.

 

For more information please click here.

contact

Rob Smith

Tel: +44 (0) 7866 362251

Email: rob@itc-tennis.com

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