Bar U18 ITF Grade 4, Day 2

Monday 20^th May 2013

It was a good start to the first event here in Montenegro despite only taking one win out of two matches today.

Holly Horsfall, Alex and I had an early start this morning with breakfast at 7am while Holly Hutchinson and Georgie had a well-deserved lie in after they were kept awake by someone snoring!

After breakfast we headed to the courts to warm up at 8am and then Holly and Alex had their on-court practice session from 8.30-9am.

The level from both players had increased from yesterday as their shape and weight of shot was looking much more effective. After moving to the hard court to hit some serves (while the clay courts were prepared for the matches) the players were finally finished around 9.15am. I then went back to the hotel to get Georgie and Holly while the other two completed their pre-match sheets and got ready for their matches.

When we returned to the club I went through the game plan and goals for both players and then it was just a case of keeping up to date with the scores on each court so that Alex and Holly knew when to warm up.

Alex was first to take to the court at just before 11am to play local wildcard Srdjan Lazarevic. After being broken in the first game it was obvious that Alex was up against a strong player who was very at home on the clay. Alex was broken again at *0-2 and it was looking like he might struggle to get a game on the board but he kept fighting hard and managed to break and hold to close the gap to 2-3*. Having won those two games it was clear to see that Alex was more confident and was looking to dictate the points more but Srdjan raised his level straight away to win the next 3 games in a row to take the first set 6-2.

The scoreline in the second set followed almost the same pattern as the first set as Alex just couldn’t quite get enough weight on the ball to keep Srdjan under pressure for long enough. The Montenegrin played well throughout the match and hit some big serves at 5-2 in the second set to hold and take the match 6-2, 6-2.

Despite the loss Alex was quite positive after the match as he had put into practice the things he’d been working on over the past few weeks and he felt as though he’d improved throughout the match.

While Alex was coming to the end of his first set Holly Horsfall went on to play Valeria Mishina from Belarus. Holly struggled a little at the start of the practice session yesterday but after 30 minutes she looked much more comfortable on the clay and when she started the match today she very quickly found a good level. Holly broke Valeria to love in the first game and even though she dropped the next two games without winning a single point she didn’t let that bother her. Holly responded by raising her level again whilst fighting hard to stay in some tough rallies which resulted in her winning the next 4 games in a row to take a 5-2 lead. Holly then wasn’t able to serve out the set but she broke in the next game to take the set 6-3.

The second set was much more one-sided; Holly flew to a 5-0 lead as Valeria just didn’t have an answer to Holly’s consistent but aggressive level from the back of the court and even though it took her a few games to close it out she finally took the set 6-2.

After Holly had finished both players cooled down and then we all returned to the hotel for lunch. The players then had a little time to themselves before Alex, Georgie, Holly Hutchinson and I returned to the club at 3.15pm for our afternoon session on the clay.

Holly and Georgie had already trained on the hard court this morning and, as they are main draw players, the only clay courts they could book were after the matches had finished. We had a very good session from 4-5pm which was mainly point based for the girls but it also gave Alex a chance to work on areas that had been highlighted from his singles match.

After cooling down and stretching out we all went back to the hotel to shower and change. I then managed to keep my Great North Run preparations going with a 4 mile run before we headed to the supermarket and then onto a well-deserved dinner.

After dinner we all went through a short psychology session and then at around 8.30pm everyone went off to bed for an early night. Georgie, Holly and I are leaving the hotel at 6.25am tomorrow to get an early practice in so hopefully they’ll get a good night’s sleep tonight!!

Schedule for tomorrow:

(1) Yana Kochneva (RUS) (1249) vs Holly Horsfall (GBR) (1908) – 3^rd match after 9am

Winner plays in the final round of qualifying later in the day