Sunday 2nd December 2012
It was a great day’s preparation for all of the players today as we build up to the 1st round main draw matches tomorrow.
The players determined how much they wanted to do today as it’s important for them to take ownership of what they are doing so they develop not only as tennis players but also as responsible, mature people. After having a day off yesterday Holly wanted to do 2 sessions; 1 with me individually and 1 point play session with another player in the afternoon. Mia only wanted one session so that she is fresh for tomorrow and Mason also just wanted one session as he knows he’s got the whole of tomorrow to prepare before he plays on Tuesday.
I was down at breakfast at 8.30am this morning to meet Holly while Mia and Mason had a bit of a lie in. From there we went to the Mombasa Sports Club just before 9.30am to book practice courts but once again every court was full on site so it was over to the Mvita Club to warm up and then train for an hour. We had a good session where we focused mainly on Holly’s consistency level from the back of the court and, despite the tremendously hot conditions, Holly worked very hard and said she’d never sweated that much in her life!
We left the Mvita Club around 11.30am and went straight back to the hotel to shower and change before meeting up with Mia and Mason for lunch. Sizzling Chicken was once again on the cards for Mason and I while the girls went for a very dodgy looking chicken and rice!
At 1.30pm we were back over at the club warming up for the next session of the day. Mason teamed up with Jonas, Holly with Arezo and Mia with me for an hour and 15 minutes of drilling and point play. Mason has been hitting the ball better each session and is looking very capable of doing some damage in the draw this week while Holly and Mia are improving their consistency from the back of the court and, with a couple of early wins to build their confidence they could also do very well.
Everyone was happy with their levels by 3.30pm so we headed over to the cricket pitch where I took them all through my stretching routine. Junior players are generally poor at stretching; many don’t see the point in doing it until they get an injury while most are just too lazy to do it properly so I thought I’d show them how thoroughly it should be done. The whole session took just under 25 minutes and even though the players didn’t say it once we had finished I think they could all feel a difference between how they normally stretch and how we did it today.
The whole team going through a thorough stretching session
From there the players signed in for the main draw and then it was back to the hotel to have a couple of hours to do school work, catch up with friends on Facebook or just relax after a good days training – I did ask all of them to contact their own individual coaches to update them on how things have been out here so it’ll be interesting to see if any of them actually did that!
Dinner tonight was back at the Royal Court Hotel but the highlight of the evening had to be having a tour around Mombasa with Baijul (a good friend of Holly’s dad who lives and works out here). We saw Fort Jesus, the Lighthouse, the Port and the beach which we would never of had the chance to do normally so we were all very grateful for Baijul’s time in showing us the sights!
Boy’s Main Draw
Girl’s Main Draw
Schedule for tomorrow:
Holly Hutchinson (GBR) (UNR) vs Sunita Verma (NOR) (UNR) – 3rd match after 9am
(6) Mia Smith (GBR) (782) vs (WC) Diana Wamwene Munyasya (KEN)(UNR) – 4th match after 9am
