Tuesday 21st May 2013
Holly produced another two very good performances today but unfortunately fell at the final hurdle in qualifying against a very good opponent.
As Georgie and Holly Hutchinson had limited time on the clay yesterday they decided to have an early start this morning to guarantee a good hour on the match courts. We left the hotel at 6.25am and after a good physical warm up we got on court just before 7am. The plan was to warm up and then play a lot of full court points but unfortunately we had to share the court at 7.30am so instead we did a lot of drilling and finished with some points.
Alex and Holly Horsfall arrived at the club at just before 8am and then went through their own warm ups before Holly had her pre-match hit with Elyse Lavender from America and Alex had a good half an hour with Bjoern Petersen from Germany. By 9am everyone had trained and were happy with the level they were hitting at so I went back to the hotel to join Holly and Georgie for some much needed breakfast!
I returned to the club at 10am and then we had a couple of hours before Holly went on to play number 1 seed Yana Kochneva from Russia. We didn’t know much about Yana but from previous experience against Russians at this level I presumed she would play straight, flat and hard – which is exactly how she did play! Holly comfortably dealt with Yana’s pace of shot and after holding serve in the first game she went on to take a *4-0 lead. During this time Yana tried but failed to get inside of Holly’s head and even though Holly was broken in the next game she went to take the first set 6-1 with some very good hitting from the back of the court.
After a lengthy toilet break Yana came back to the court but nothing was going to faze Holly and she continued from where she left off at the end of the first set. Yana led 30-15 in the first three games of the second set but Holly reeled off 3 sets of 3 points in a row (one of her main goals for the trip!) to take a 3-0 lead. Once again Yana tried to disrupt Holly’s rhythm with some very late calls but Holly stayed strong and took down the top seed 6-1, 6-0.
Over the next four hours we managed to watch Holly’s next opponent, Alex completed his strength and conditioning programme for the day and got some more practice in, Holly Hutchinson and Georgie trained on the hard court, I managed to get in a power nap in the restaurant and Holly Horsfall managed to get away from site with me for an hour to relax before her next match.
Eventually Holly went on for her last round of qualifying match at 6.30pm to face Jelena Djordan from Bosnia and Herzegovina. We’d watched Jelena earlier in the day and knew that she was a tough lefty who was both solid and aggressive from the back of the court. Holly had a difficult start to the match; she was trying hard to put her opponent under pressure but unfortunately that resulted in too many unforced errors. It wasn’t until 0-4* in the first set that Holly really started to find her range and she played a good game to break Jelena’s serve. Unfortunately Holly couldn’t capitalise on that break and lost the next two games to lose the first set 6-1.
During the second set Holly played some of her best tennis of the trip so far. The game plan was to find a series of 3 shots in a row where she could keep her opponent under pressure to get either a volley or drive volley to finish the point and Holly did just that on at least 12-15 occasions. Unfortunately it was the final ball that Holly struggled with and she just couldn’t finish the point off after setting it up so well. Despite playing at a high level throughout the set Holly went down 6-1, 6-1 but credit has to go to her opponent who played very well throughout.
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Holly moving forwards to finish the point off during the 2nd set
After the match all four players cooled down and stretched out before we headed back to the hotel for dinner.
Due to a delay in the draws being produced the girls all went to bed without seeing who they are playing which could be just as well as Holly Horsfall drew the Lucky Loser spot and now plays Georgie in the first round!
Girl’s Singles Main Draw
Schedule for tomorrow:
(Q) Andrada Surdeanu (ROU) (1367) vs Holly Hutchinson (GBR) (827) – 7th match after 9am (2nd match not before 3pm)
(LL) Holly Horsfall (GBR) (1908) vs (6) Georgie Axon (GBR) (378) – 8th match after 9am (3rd match not before 3pm)
