Tuesday 5th July 2011

For Gaby, Athena and Mia it was main draw day today and a chance to get some points on the board after their tough doubles matches yesterday.

It was the same routine as it has been all week this morning; 7am breakfast, taxi to the site at 7.45am, warm up at 8am and start hitting on court at 8.30am. All of the girls had a good warm up on the back courts, the weather was holding off and by 9am they were all ready to go.

Mia was second round of matches on and was up against Katie Dyson. Like many U14 girls matches it was all about whoever held their serve a couple of times was probably going to win each set!! After 8 games it was 4-4 and there had been 8 breaks of serve but Mia did well to then hold and break to take the first set. Mia deserved to be a set up as she was playing strong aggressive tennis but at the start of the second she became too passive and Katie was by no means about to give her the match. Katie broke twice early on and managed to keep hold of her serve to take the set 6-3. Due to Athena and Gaby being on court I didn’t see the whole of the third but the parts I did see were similar to the second set with Mia not continuing the level of the first and getting frustrated with herself for making too many unforced errors. In the end Katie came through the match 4-6, 6-3, 6-4 – a disappointing one for Mia as if she had maintained the first set level she would have won the match.

Athena was taking on qualifier Emily Dunne who was a tough player and made life very difficult for Athena throughout. The matches that Emily had played in qualifying would have built her confidence and prepared her well for today as she played a strong aggressive game whilst enjoying the pace that Athena was giving her. Athena’s base game was solid but she didn’t do enough to hurt Emily in the first set as she went down 6-1. To Athena’s credit she really stepped up in the second and took the ball on a lot more forcing Emily to defend and when she did Athena came forwards and finished the point well. Apart from an early exchange of breaks the second set went with serve all the way until Athena was 6-5 up. Emily then held to take it to a tie break and finished the match off by taking the breaker 7-3. Athena did well this week to be out there playing as she had to take time off from competing last week due to illness and I know she’ll take the positives from this match into her next events.

Gaby was our last match on court and was taking on Melanie Stokke from Norway on Court 1. Gaby struggled from the start with her consistency and that played a huge part in the match as she was taking on a player that was happy to feed off her pace and just wait until Gaby missed. Melanie got an early break in the first and never really let Gaby get back into it as she went on to take the set 6-2. At the start of the second Gaby found a more consistent level whilst still being aggressive and got a break to lead 2-1 only for Melanie to break straight back and hold to make it 3-2. By this time it had been raining for about 15 minutes but I think the referee made too quick a decision to call the players off. These green clay courts can hold a lot of water and even though I wanted to get Gaby off the court to talk to her I didn’t particularly want her to go indoors. After a 30 minute break the referee decided to move the matches indoors. After an extended warm up to get used to the courts Gaby held serve to make it 3-3 but struggled again with her consistency. She was trying too hard to win the points too early in the rally resulting in Melanie taking the next 3 games and the match 6-2, 6-3.

So after a tough 4 losses yesterday and another 3 today I was pleased that all of the players responded well and went straight into the gym to complete their injury prevention, cool down and stretch out fully before they were done for the day. Funnily enough the weather outside was great and the referee moved the remaining matches back onto the clay!

After we had thanked the referee and the other tournament staff we left site and headed back to our hotel to pack and book our train journey home tomorrow. We had dinner tonight in Edinburgh and everyone’s spirits were raised a little with a few games of spoof especially when I was the one who lost and had to do a dynamic warm up in the street in front of the restaurant!

We’ll head home tomorrow and then I’ll be back on the road again on Friday with Mia heading up to Solihull for the U14 TE event at the Arden Club.

Monday 4th July 2011

Happy Independence Day to all the American readers 🙂

Big day today with all of the guys aiming to pick up some ITF and TE points in doubles before their main draw singles matches start tomorrow.

Even though we weren’t playing doubles until this afternoon we wanted to get on site early in the morning to get some practise in on the clay and do some doubles specific training. As usual we were warming up at 8am and started our 30 minutes on the clay at 8.30am drilling groundstrokes and volleys to make the most of being on the match courts. From there it was straight indoors for an hour to solely work on doubles specifics before going to the gym to cool down, complete injury prevention exercises and then stretch out. Everyone then signed in for doubles and we returned to the house to have a break.

We arrived back onsite around 1pm just as the doubles draws came out and everyone got in except Cameron so the order of play looked like this:

Brigit Folland (GBR) & Ella Taylor (GBR) vs Gaby Paul (GBR) & Natalie Syme (GBR) – 5th round on, Not Before 3.30pm

Emily Dunne (GBR) & Anouska Newman (GBR) vs (3) Emily Gibbens (GBR) & Yuriko Miyazaki (JPN) – 5th round on, Not Before 3.30pm

Athena Chrysanthou (GBR) & Nicole Daisley (GBR) vs Anneka Watts (GBR) & Sophie Watts (GBR) – 5th round on, Not Before 3.30pm

Costanza Pera (ITA) & Mia Smith (GBR) vs Emily Smith (GBR) & Patricia Valimaa (GBR) – 7th round on (3rd after 3.30pm)

Everything was running a bit behind today as some of the main draw matches were going on longer than expected so Gaby and Natalie didn’t end up going on until around 5.30pm. They had a tough match against a very solid Ella Taylor and an experienced Brigit Folland. They were a little nervous to start but came back from 3-0 down in the first, then lead 4-3 only for Ella and Brigit to take it 6-4. The second was a similar pattern to the first but again Gaby and Natalie played some good doubles at times and just needed to move more and dominate the net to try to upset their opponents rhythm and consistency. In the end Ella and Brigit won 6-4, 6-4 but it’s given Gaby a good run out before her singles main draw tomorrow.

While Gaby was on Anouska and Emily were also on court so I was trying to keep one eye on each match! Similar to Gaby and Natalie’s start Anouska and Emily went 4-1 down, then fought back to 4-3 (which is when I went to sit behind their court) and probably due to me moving (!!) they then lost the next 2 games to go down in the 1st set 6-3. I then moved back to watch Gaby and saw that Anouska and Emily played a very strong second set so I thought I’d stay away and leave them to it! They took the second set 6-2 and looked all over their opponents in the match tie break leading 8-5. At this point their was a smash that our girls should have buried but it was returned and gave their opponents a bit of belief which resulted in 5 points in a row for Gibbens and Miyazaki to take the match 6-4, 2-6, 10-8.

Mia & Costanza and Athena & Nicole both went on just after 7pm – one on court 1 and the other on court 6 which are either ends of the site – not ideal! So for the next hour and 45 minutes I was running back and forth between the two matches. Mia and Costanza took the first set with some good aggressive doubles play but after Mia was broken early in the second it looked as though their heads dropped and the second and third sets went against them as they went down 2-6, 6-3, 10-8.

Athena and Nicole were playing against the Watts’ sisters and played well in parts but it was obviously that Anneka and Sophie had played together a lot and the experience they had started to show. After a tight first set Anneka and Sophie didn’t let up and continued to have the edge in the second taking the match 6-4, 6-3.

**Picture**

By this time it was 8.45pm and we’d been on site for 13 hours!! The girls had a quick shower and then we got some food before getting the bus back. It was a long day and tough to lose 4 out of 4 but hopefully they’ve all learnt a lot from their matches and Gaby, Athena and Mia can use what they’ve learnt in their singles matches tomorrow.

Schedule for tomorrow:

Katie Dyson (GBR) vs (q) Mia Smith (GBR) – 2nd round on after 9am

Gaby Paul (GBR) vs Melanie Stokke (NOR) – 3rd round on after 9am

Emily Dunne (GBR) vs Athena Chrysanthou (GBR) – 3rd round on after 9am

Sunday 3rd July 2011

It was a bit more of a relaxed start to the day for some but I was up and running at 6am this morning as my Great North Run training is in full flow (details to follow on how you can sponsor me and support Make-A-Wish Foundation).

We arrived at the club just before 8am and it was straight into our warms up before stepping on the court for our pre-match hitting at 8.30am. Cameron, Mia and Anouska all had matches today so they had the priority in the warm up; whatever they wanted to do they did and everyone else in the team worked around them.

Cameron was first on at 9.30am and he was taking on Piers Herfet-Jones from The West Hants Club in Bournemouth. Cam’s nerves showed in the first couple of games but he soon got into the match and fought back from 2-0 down to get it back on serve by playing some very smart lefty clay court tennis. Up until 5-5 Cam was in control of the match and making life very difficult for Piers but his frustrations on a couple of points led the court supervisor to have a quiet word in his ear which then made him lose concentration. He went from 5-5 to 5-7, 0-4 in about 10 minutes but to his credit he fought back, held and broke to make it 2-4 but Piers played a strong last few games to take the match 7-5, 6-3. Tough result but a great performance overall and Cam will learn a lot from this experience.

Mia had gone on court just before Cam had finished so it was straight over to the other side of the club for me to court 7 to watch her. She was up against Jodie Burrage who she played in January when she was back from Bollettieri’s and the match followed almost exactly the same pattern. Mia played a very aggressive and professional first set taking it 6-1, she then raced to a 3-0 lead before Jodie fought back to make it 3-3. Mia’s unforced errors then increased at the same time as Jodie started to hit more winners but despite this Mia took a 5-3 lead and served for the match at 5-4 and 6-5 only for Jodie to take it to a tie break. Mia responded well in the breaker and took it convincingly 7-4 to win the match 6-1, 7-6 and qualify for the main draw.

We then had a short break before Anouska went on against Ella Taylor in our last match of the day. Anouska had some clear goals for the match against a player who is very tricky, especially on a clay court but all of her goals were about herself so it didn’t matter what her opponent did or how she played as this was all about Anouska. Ella won the match 6-0, 6-1 and only made 10 unforced errors throughout but Anouska achieved every goal she set for herself and played some of the best tennis I’ve seen from her in quite some time, it’s now just a case of playing at that level more often, getting used to having to hit 4/5 quality balls every point and reducing the unforced errors while she continues to attack – not easy but Anouska’s more than capable of doing that over the summer.

By the time Anouska had finished it was around 3.30pm and even though the rest of the team had been in the gym and practising on the indoor courts during the day they were very eager to get on the clay after all the matches had finished. We waited until 4.30pm and then managed to get on Centre Court for an hour to firstly work on some singles and then to finish off with some doubles.

We left site just after 6.15pm and by some miracle the girls managed to shower and change and be out by just after 7pm so we could have a reasonably early dinner!

Main draw starts tomorrow but it’s only doubles for us (depending on how many get in!)

Schedule for tomorrow:

Everyone will hopefully be in doubles action but we’ll only find out at 12pm if they have got in.

Saturday 2nd July 2011

A good start to the trip today as we won 2 out of the 3 matches and the sun was shining all day!

It was an early start today with everyone up and out by 6.45pm and warming up at the tennis centre by 7am. Everyone trained from 7.30 – 8am except Athena as she’s still recovering from being ill; it was a good 30 minutes, all the players managed their time well and the three players competing were fully prepared for their matches.

Nicole was first on at 9am taking on Helen Rabot. She started the match well finding a good level of hitting but it was just a little too inconsistent, especially when serving. At 4-4 the girls were on serve but there had been a total of 6 breaks of serve in the 8 games – both girls were breaking easily but just couldn’t hold. At 4-4 Helen broke and then put together 4 good points to take the first set 6-4. The second set was much more one sided as Helen significantly reduced her unforced errors from 21 in the first set to 12 in the second whereas Nicole’s errors remained almost the same in each set resulting in Helen taking the set 6-1.

We had a bit of a break in the middle of the day which gave Gaby and Mia a chance to train indoors and also gave the others a chance to get some lunch and watch some of the other players.

Cameron was next up taking on Russell Graham from Scotland. It was a great match from both players; Cameron was being very aggressive and using his leftiness to great effect and Russell was playing a strong counter-punching game which made life difficult for Cameron. The first set started with Cameron going 3-1 up and then 5-2 up before Russell held and broke to make it 5-4. Cameron reacted well to this and immediately broke back with a solid game to take the set 6-4. In the second set Cameron significantly reduced his unforced errors (from 28 to 15) and upped his winners (from 11 to 14) which was the main reason why he raced to a 4-0 lead before closing out the set by holding his serve at 5-3.

Anouska had a long day of waiting around as she had a bye in the first round but she was able to get away from the site for a few hours in the middle of the day and get back to the house which hopefully helped her to prepare for her match. She went on against fellow Kent girl Rebecca Finch at just after 5.40pm and from the start it looked as though it could be a long match. Rebecca took an early 2-0 lead before Anouska fought back with some clever tactics and it was back on serve until Anouska broke at 5-4 to take the set 6-4. Anouska will admit it wasn’t the prettiest tennis but it was very effective and she stuck to her pre-match game plan throughout which gave her a healthy 5-2 lead in the second. At 5-3 she was serving for the match and dug deep to maintain her focus and belief to take the match 6-4, 6-3.

Anouska finished around 7.30pm so after over 12 hours at the club it was time for a quick cool down and then straight back to the house to get some food and relax for a while before everyone retired to bed for an early night. It was a long day but good to get 2 wins out of 3 to start the trip.

Schedule for tomorrow:

Cameron Hawkins (GBR) (UNR) vs Piers Herfet-Jones (GBR) (UNR) – 1st round at 9.30am

Mia Smith (GBR) (UNR) vs Jodie Burrage (GBR) (UNR) – 2nd round after 9.30am

Anouska Newman (GBR) (UNR) vs Ella Taylor (GBR) (UNR) – N.B. 1.30pm

Friday 1st July 2011

So the British summer junior events start today (if you don’t include Roehampton and Junior Wimbledon!) with Edinburgh kicking off the first in a series of U18 ITF and U14 TE events.

This week I’m meeting up with 5 players who were playing the LTA grade 2 event in Edinburgh and Mia Smith, who travelled up with me, to make it a team of 6 in total. I met Mia at London Bridge train station and we made the journey across London and then up to Stansted to catch our easyJet flight to Edinburgh.

We arrived at the Craiglockhart Tennis Centre at around 1.30pm and met up with the other 5 members of the team; Anouska Newman, Cameron Hawkins, Nicole Daisley, Gaby Paul and Athena Chaysantou. I’ve been here many times before and it’s always a good, well run event (as long as the rain holds off!!). Apart from Athena (who has not been well) we all trained on court from 3.00pm until about 4.30pm when the guys then stretched and signed in for qualies. Once all the formalities were done we jumped in a couple of taxis and made the short journey back to our house that we’ve rented for the week.

We took advantage of having the kitchen tonight and I slaved away for a couple of hours cooking dinner for everyone – unfortunately by the time it came to serving some for myself all the food had gone so it was straight back to the shop to get something else!!

It was nice to be able to eat dinner and relax in front of the TV watching Murray vs Nadal, just a shame Andy couldn’t come through. After dinner the whole team did the washing up and then chilled out for the rest of the evening.

Schedule for tomorrow:

Helen Rabot (GBR) (UNR) vs Nicole Daisley (GBR) (UNR) – 1st round at 9am

Russell Graham (GBR) (UNR) vs Cameron Hawkins (GBR) (UNR) – 3rd round after 9am

Helen Rabot (GBR) (UNR) or Nicole Daisley (GBR) (UNR) vs Savannah Sills (GBR) (UNR) – 5th round after 9am

Anouska Newman (GBR) (UNR) vs Cecily Wuenscher (GBR) (UNR) or Rebecca Finch (GBR) (UNR) – 5th round after 9am