Tuesday 13^th May 2014

We had another ‘Tricky Tuesday’ today as Toby suffered a 2^nd round loss in the singles and a 1^st round loss in the doubles.

We were up early this morning and at breakfast by 6.20am before getting the 7am bus to the club. Toby and Brandon then went through their physical warm-up exercises and then hit from 8-8.30am on centre court to prepare Toby for his singles match. Toby was hitting well and, despite the distraction of around 10 people warming up on the side of the court, he felt good about his game by the time we had finished.

The match before Toby’s lasted around 1 hour 45 minutes and in that time we completed a pre-match sheet, talked though our tactics for the match and watched some of the other first round matches. Then, at 10.15am, Toby went on court to face 14^th seed Damon Kesaris from South Africa.

As you know if you’ve been following the Blogs, Toby has been working hard on finding a consistently aggressive level but from the start of the match today it was apparent that Damon could match him shot for shot and then increase his level when he needed to. That led to Toby going for a little more than normal and, as he’s not used to doing that, it resulted in a high number of unforced errors. At *0-3 down Toby tried to raise his level and his consistency but he often struggled to find the 2-3 quality strikes in a row that he needed to put Damon under enough pressure to make him break down.

The first set lasted just under 30 minutes and even though the scoreline read 6-0, the games were much closer than the score suggested. Toby continued to battle hard at the start of the second set and after holding serve to level the set at 1-1 his confidence started to grow. By that stage Toby was finding some very good combinations of shots but it was just the final ball that was letting him down and Damon took full advantage to break and hold to lead 4-1. The last two games of the 2^nd set were probably the best of the match, but it was Damon that won the important points and went on to take the match 6-0, 6-1.

After the match Toby expressed his disappointment with the scoreline but he also said he was pleased with the way that he had approached the match and the level he had found throughout. The goal now is to increase his consistency at his higher level and if he can do that then matches like this one will be much closer.

Between when Toby came off for his singles and when he started to warm up for his doubles, he just about had enough time to shower, stretch, eat and relax for around 30 minutes. Following Toby and Brandon’s doubles last week they knew exactly what they needed to do today and also knew that if they did not get outside their comfort zones then they would struggle to win the match.

Unfortunately they both started slowly and immediately went 0-3 down. They fought back though and played some good doubles to get back on serve at *3-4 but a poor service game ended up costing them the first set.

The boys started the 2^nd set much better and from the first game they started to move more at the net and finish a lot more first volleys. Toby was broken at *1-1 and then 3 more breaks followed which resulted in the set being all-square at *3-3. At this stage I really thought the momentum was with Toby & Brandon and, after Toby played a very good service game to lead 4-3, I thought they had really turned the match around. Shabani held serve in the next game and then another poor service game at a crucial time lead to Toby and Brandon being broken to a sudden death deuce point. It was always going to be tough to break Muzingaye’s serve as Shabani was extremely sharp at the net and, after a few very tight points, Toby and Brandon went down 6-3, 6-4.

The performance was much much better than last week but Toby pointed out straight after the match that if they had played like that in their previous doubles match they would have won. They then would have had more matches under their belts and could have been in a much better position to win this match today – which I agreed with 100%!

The loss in the doubles ended our 2^nd week here in Windhoek but I believe Toby has improved a lot over the trip and most importantly he feels much more comfortable competing at this level. He’s played 8 matches in total; won 4 and lost 4 and even though he hasn’t picked up any ITF points this time I am very confident that he will in the next ITF he plays.

For dinner tonight we decided to go to ‘Joe’s Beerhouse’ which has been highly recommended by a lot of people . . . and it was definitely worth it. I decided to go for the Game meat and had an Oryx fillet while Toby had a peppered steak. Both meals were superb and the atmosphere in the restaurant was great with everyone sitting together on long benches and eating under a big thatched roof.

When we got back to the hotel it was time to pack up and get ready to return back to England tomorrow.

The next trip is a return to Montenegro for the Grade 5 ITF at the end of May . . . let’s hope we don’t come across any snakes this year!!

Monday 12^th May 2014

It was an excellent start to the second week here in Windhoek, as Toby produced his best match of the trip to advance to the 2^nd round.

My day started a little earlier than Toby’s today as I got the 7am shuttle bus to make sure we got the timeslot we wanted on the only practice court available at the club. I then made my way back to the hotel and met Toby for breakfast at 8.30am. The plan was then to get the 9.30am shuttle to the club but once again it didn’t turn up! Luckily the hotel driver was available so he took us to the club and then at 10am we started to warm up for our practice session.

Our pre-match hit lasted just over 30 minutes and Toby was both hitting well and feeling positive by the time we finished. Between 11am and when Toby went on at 12.30am we spent the time preparing for the match by going through Toby’s pre-match sheet, keeping updated on the score on his court and staying relaxed by once again setting forfeits based on achieving a certain score on Subway Surfers!

I’m not sure whether it was the specific pre-match preparations that we went through or taking Toby’s mind off the match by competing with me on iPhone games, but whatever it was it definitely worked as Toby produced a very good performance!

He started the match against Pieter Theron from Namibia very well and raced to a 4-0 lead. Over the past 4 days we’ve worked hard on him dictating points and playing at a consistently aggressive level and throughout the first 4 games he did that very well. Pieter then held serve twice in the next 4 games but in response Toby also held serve to take the set 6-2.

During the second set Pieter upped his game but by this stage Toby was feeling confident and continued to take the set to his opponent. One of Toby’s main goals was to maintain a 60-40 balance during each point and, even though Pieter increased his winner count from the first set, Toby made sure that his opponent had to work very hard for every point he won. Even at break point and game points down Toby continued to play aggressive tennis which ultimately saw him come through the second set 6-0.

It was a very good performance from Toby but, rather than us just take it easy after the match, we went straight onto the practice court to work on a few areas of his game for about 10 minutes before he cooled down and stretched out. By the time we got up to the referee’s office the doubles draw had been released:

We then headed to Nando’s again for lunch where once again Toby’s attention turned to getting his own back on me for the forfeits he’d been doing all weekend! After losing the first battle I had to ask the waitress for a hairnet and then proceed to wear it during my meal and the plan was to wear it on the way back to the club too:

However, the tables soon turned on Toby as he lost the second game and he had to take over the wearing of it both on the way back to the club and also at dinner this evening!

After lunch we went back to the club (for Toby to show off his new hair accessory to everyone there!) and then got on court with Brandon from 4-5pm for some specific doubles training. Toby and Brandon’s match last week had not been of the level that any of us had expected but this afternoon they worked very hard on their movement and placement of their volleys. We all wanted to stay on court longer as the session was of a superb level but the last bus back to the hotel was at 5pm so we had to take that one.

Once we got back Toby stretched out by the swimming pool and then we went back to our rooms to relax before dinner.

As we walked into the restaurant this evening everyone caught the sight of Toby with his hairnet on and even though his face went rather red I think he loved the attention from the girls!!

Throughout the whole meal he kept bugging me to play again so that he could win his way out of the forfeit and eventually he won which saw me do 20 press-ups in the middle of the restaurant with the hairnet on!!

It was a good, hard-working day on the court and a fun day off the court today – hopefully tomorrow will be more of the same!

Schedule for tomorrow:

(14) Damon Kesaris (RSA) (1497) vs (wc) Toby Huffer (GBR) (UNR) – 2^nd match after 8.30am

Toby Huffer (GBR) & Brandon Levendale (ZIM) vs Shabani Kabura (BDI) & Muzingaye Sibanda (ZIM) – 4^th match after 8.30am (not before 12.30pm)

Sunday 11^th May 2014

It was a happy Mother’s Day today here in Namibia as we put the final touches to our preparation for week 2.

As I said yesterday, the schedule for today was much lighter than our other training days as it is very important that Toby is fresh and ready to go for his first round match tomorrow. With that in mind we had a lie-in and met for breakfast at 8am and then got the 9.30am bus to the club.

Once we arrived we warmed up straight away and then managed to get on court for an excellent 2 hour session from 10 – 12pm. The first hour was spent focussing on Toby’s groundstrokes and making sure that he had a really good feel for the ball from the back of the court. Then at 11am we managed to get a whole court to ourselves so we went straight into open points with the focus again being on finding a good aggressive balance. Even though we’ve been here well over a week, the altitude is still a little difficult to deal with and so we have to make sure that there is a complete commitment to every shot. It is fairly easy to be consistent in the rally but it is a lot more difficult to find a consistency with a high hitting level and that is what is required to compete with the best players in the tournament. After playing a few sets of conditioned points we finished the session with around 20 minutes of serving points and by the time we were finished Toby was feeling confident about his game. Just to finish off we decided to play a best of 3 set game of ‘Bounce’ and, as Toby was feeling very confident, he decided the loser would have the forfeit of jumping into the swimming pool at the hotel fully clothed! At 1 set all Toby thought he had a chance but I upped my game to take the deciding set 5-2!

The shuttle was waiting for us when we finished so we went straight back to the hotel where Toby went straight to the pool to do his forfeit. However, we didn’t realise that there would be loads of the tournament players around the pool to watch him do it!

After Toby’s ‘cooling off’ we stretched out and got a well-deserved shower before it was time for lunch. Last Sunday we had to have the buffet lunch at the hotel because there was nothing else available but it ended up being a lot more expensive than our normal pasta lunch. So today we headed to Nando’s to get some chicken and rice and when we arrived we saw that most of the other players had the same idea!

After lunch we headed back to the club as we were told by the tournament director that Toby still needed to sign in for Main Draw. Originally we were told that sign-in would open at 3pm but in the end it opened at 4pm and then the referee said we actually didn’t need to sign-in as Toby had officially been awarded a Wildcard! We weren’t too bothered about having to hang around until 4pm as it gave Toby a chance to get his own back on me with some of his own forfeits as he challenged me to Subway Surfers. I ended up doing some star-jumps on one of the stands by the side of the courts but Toby’s ones were much more special!

On our way to dinner in the evening Toby had to crawl into the restaurant and then ask the waiter his thoughts on a couple of meals while reading the menu upside down! Toby did both very well and just about managed to keep it together without bursting out laughing!

Over dinner the draw came out and here it is:

Schedule for tomorrow:

Pieter Theron (NAM) (UNR) vs (wc) Toby Huffer (GBR) (UNR) – 4^th match after 8.30am

Saturday 10^th May 2014

It was another good day of training today as we close in on the Main Draw which starts on Monday.

Last night I asked Toby to plan the next two days of training both on and off the court so that he was in control of what and how much he did on both days. He decided that we’d have an early start this morning to have a full training day and then reduce everything tomorrow so that he is fresh for his first match on Monday. We were therefore up and at breakfast by 6.20am this morning before getting the first bus to the club at 7am.

Toby and I then warmed up and had a good session on the match courts from 7.30 – 8.30am before the qualifying matches started. Toby hit well throughout the hour and it is obvious that the amount of training he has done in the last week has really helped him to increase the confidence in his game. He is looking strong from the back of the court and his volleys are improving each day – if he can keep trusting his game on the match court then I think he can do really well this week.

Even though we lost the court at 8.30am, we went straight down onto centre court to work on serve and return for another half an hour before heading into the clubhouse to go through a strength and conditioning session. Toby followed his own S&C programme while I went through my own and I think both of us managed to keep each other motivated without saying a word!

After stretching out, we got a lift back to the hotel with one of the tennis coaches and then spent an hour relaxing before it was time for lunch. Toby then got stuck into some school work for a couple of hours until 3pm when it was time to go back over to the club for our second session of the day.

As this morning was spent working on specific areas of Toby’s game we decided that the afternoon session would be mainly point based. Like yesterday afternoon, Brandon joined us and both boys competed hard for almost an hour and a half. Even though we played a lot of points during the session we set them up based around finding a good aggressive balance to ensure the level of both players remained high.

At 5pm we got the shuttle bus back to the hotel where Toby and I debriefed today’s on and off court sessions and then came up with a good plan for our final training day tomorrow.

Earlier today we did discuss having a change of plan for dinner and going somewhere different but in the end Toby decided to have it at the hotel restaurant. He decided to go for the chicken curry again which last week proved to be a little difficult to get out of the red hot cauldron that it came in. Tonight however he was ready for his ‘Bush Tucker Trial’ as he called it:

Friday 9^th May 2014

It was a good final day of preparation today . . . or so we thought until 6.30pm this evening!

We were up early again this morning to have breakfast at 6.30am and then get the 7am shuttle to the club. Like yesterday we went straight on court when we arrived to warm up for half an hour and then we had a really good hour of drilling and point play. We spent the first half an hour working on specific areas of Toby’s groundstrokes before warming up volleys and serves. We then finished the session with a couple of tie-breaks where Toby played at a superb level to take the first one 10-5. Lucky (for me!) I managed to sneak the second one before we lost the court to the main draw matches.

Straight after the session we went upstairs into the clubhouse to go through a good 25 minute core session and then finished our morning’s training with a thorough stretch out.

For the whole of last week the shuttle bus that takes us to and from the club had been on time but this week the drive has been slacking a bit! So, instead of getting the bus back at 9.30am, we had to get a lift with one of the parents as the bus didn’t turn up at all! Once we got back to the hotel we showered and changed and then headed to the restaurant at around 11.30am to get some lunch.

The early part of the afternoon was spent with Toby doing a good couple of hours of school work and me planning the tournaments over the summer. Then at 3pm we went to reception to get the shuttle to take us back to the club but guess what? It didn’t show up again! Lucky the hotel receptionist was able to give us a lift but as there were 6 of us we had to do it in 2 trips.

Brandon Levendale joined us for our afternoon session and, after warming up, the boys went straight into a practice set. Brandon had an excellent start to the set and took a 3-0 lead but Toby fought back to win the next two games and stay within touching distance of his doubles partner. The next two games were very tight with both boys playing at a high level but it was Brandon that won both games. Even though Toby was 2-5 down he remained positive and competed hard on each point to break and then hold his serve to get within one game of levelling the set at 4-5. However, after another tight game, it was Brandon who went on to take the set 6-4. The boys finished the session with a tie-break to 10 points and again it was Brandon that came out on top despite another close battle.

After cooling down and stretching out Toby signed in for Qualifying and then we got the bus back to the hotel. It was only at 6.30pm when the Qualifying draw came out that we realised that Toby had moved up into the main draw so we have another couple of days of training before he’ll play his first match on Monday. The positive is that we’ve got another two days to prepare for the Main Draw but the downside is that Toby was really looking forward to competing tomorrow!

Here’s the (rather empty) Qualifying draw:

Thursday 8^th May 2014

The rest day yesterday saw the end of the first ITF here in Windhoek, and so today our preparations for the second week (a Grade 5 ITF) began before qualifying starts on Saturday.

At 5.30am this morning my alarm went off but I’m not sure I actually needed it as minutes later a huge rainstorm came down on the tin roof above my room! By the time we met at 6.20am for breakfast the rain had stopped but we had a feeling that the courts at the club would be completely out of action.

When we got there at 7am all of the courts were soaked and at first Toby didn’t think I was serious when I said we were going to warm up straight away, but then he soon realised that a wet court wasn’t about to stop us training! After the warm-up we went through a really good speed and movement session for an hour and even though the court was still wet, we managed to get through everything without falling over once!

Once we had finished, Toby had a 15 minute break to have a small snack and then, as the courts had dried out, we went back on for our tennis session. Toby was really keen to play after having the day off yesterday and from the start of the session his intensity was very good. We warmed up groundstrokes and volleys and then we managed to get the whole court to ourselves so we decided to go straight into some points. During the second ‘up to 11’ it started to rain and within 30 seconds it was coming down very hard. It was disappointing to stop but at least we managed to get a good 45 minutes in and it was still worth getting up early for.

We got a lift back to the hotel with Courtney Lock and his mum but even the short walk from where they dropped us off to our rooms was enough for us both to get completely soaked! We then stayed at the hotel for a few hours to relax and get some lunch before we got the shuttle back to the tennis club at 2pm.

Once again we went straight on court to warm up and then started hitting at around 2.30pm. We had already planned to play a practice set this afternoon with the main focus being finding the level that Toby had played against Kris, but increasing the consistency at that level. The first few games were quite tight but I managed to take the important points and took a 3-0 lead. Toby immediately raised his game and served and returned much better to hold and break me in the next game. At 3-2 I felt as though Toby was right back in the set but a couple of inconsistent games from him gave me at 5-2 lead. Toby then produced his best service game to keep the pressure on but, after another close game, I managed to serve it out to take the set 6-3. One of the best things about travelling individually with a coach is that you’ve always got a lot of time to review matches / training and get back on court to make improvements. After discussing the set Toby wanted to go straight into another one but this time we decided to play a short set up to 4 games. The level was much better and the games were a lot closer than the first set but I just managed to scrape through 4-2!

By the time we finished playing it was 4pm and so we decided to go straight into a strength and condition session for 40 minutes and then have a good stretch out before the shuttle left at 5pm.

Overall it was a really good day and even though it rained a lot this morning we still managed to get 2 conditioning sessions in as well as 2 on-court sessions.

Once we left the club we stopped at the supermarket to stock up on more supplies and then it was straight back to the hotel to shower and change before dinner.

Tomorrow will be a lighter day as qualifying starts on Saturday but, because of the lack of practice courts during the day, we’re still going to have to get up early to guarantee a court.