Dutch Bowl Ten-Pro, Day 6

Thursday 19th May 2022

After 3 days in-a-row of waking up at 5:30am it was nice to have our first match starting at 12:30pm today … but Isla had different plans for me (and it didn’t involve a lie-in!).

As Isla wasn’t playing today she had the option of training later in the day on the outdoor courts or getting up early and hitting from 7-8am on the carpet … and she chose the latter!

So, we were up and out by 6:15am so that we could get to the tennis centre and maximise our time on court before the singles matches started at 8am.

Isla and I had a really good session where we worked on different tactics to play the girl she is meeting in the semi-final tomorrow and by just after 8am we were both very happy with the work we had done.

It was then back to the house to string up one of Rhys’s rackets that he broke yesterday and then back to the centre for 11am to warm up for Rhys’s U12 semi-final which was scheduled for 12:30pm.

Rhys was taking on John Michael Carney from Holland for a place in the final on Sunday and we knew that this was going to be a very tough match against an opponent who had only lost one match all week (and that one was 6-4 in the third!).

Rhys started very well and was *3-0 double break up within 10 minutes but his opponent was not about to rollover. John Michael fought back with some huge forehands and a very aggressive game style to win the next 3 games and level the set at 3-3. As I mentioned yesterday, Rhys’s attitude has been his main goal all week and today he was once again superb; he won a huge sudden death deuce game to break serve at 3-3* and then held and broke once more to take the set 6-3.

As expected, John Michael dug deep at the start of the 2^nd set and won 2 sudden death deuce games in the opening 3 games to take a 2-1 lead with a break. Rhys responded brilliantly and, despite all of the remaining games in the set being very close, he won all of them which included 3 more sudden death deuces to take the match 6-3, 6-2 and book his place in the final!

Rhys was delighted with the win and it just goes to show what a difference having a lot of matches in the last 5 days can do for tactical and mental game development.

Arundhati arrived on site just before 3pm today and we were just about to go and hit on the outside courts when an almighty storm came over and completely flooded the courts! So, not to be one to just let her take it easy until the courts dried out, I got her onto the squash courts to do a little movement work:

At 4:45pm Arundhati went on court to face Zoey Rayer from Holland. All of us had watched Zoey play this week at both venues and each time we had seen her play we were all very impressed with how hard she works and what a great attitude she has. We also knew that it was going to be a very tough match, but what we didn’t expect was Arundhati to play so amazingly well throughout!

Getting your serve broken by an older, physically stronger girl is sometimes to be expected but to break straight back is not, especially 3 times in-a-row! So by *3-3 we’d had 6 breaks, then up until 6-5* we’d had 5 holds so it was about time someone went against the treads and it was Arundhati who stepped up to break and win the first set 7-5.

When I went on court it was so good to see Arundhati absolutely buzzing with excitement. She knew she’d played a great set and had matched her opponent with pace and execution throughout – which made my job very easy … “Just keep doing the same things!”

She did just that and even added in a few drop shots just for fun! There was a little blip at 3-0* when Arundhati lost 4 games in-a-row but that wasn’t going to deter her from owning this match and she immediately broke back, held and broke again to take the match 7-5, 6-4.

Without a doubt it was one of the team’s best performances of the trip and Arundhati now cannot wait to get back on court for her next one tomorrow!

Dinner tonight was pasta bolognaise at the club while we watched the other boy’s U12 semi-final and then at 8pm we headed back to the house for an early night.

Schedule for tomorrow (did anyone say 5:30am start again?!):

Arundhati Ajit (USA) vs Julie Vulsteyke (BEL) – 1st match at 8am

Isla Smith (GBR) vs Vanessa Lagerlof (FIN) – not before 12:30am