Bar U18 ITF Grade 4, Day 8

Sunday 26^th May 2013

For the second trip in a row we had a birthday to celebrate but unfortunately Georgie just couldn’t have the perfect birthday present of reaching the final this week.

We woke up again to miserable conditions but at least it wasn’t raining and it looked as though it was going to brighten up soon. Everyone was at breakfast at 7am apart from Katty who had struggled to get to sleep because of yet another school disco at the hotel!

By 8am the weather had cleared so we made our way over to the club and to our surprise the clay courts were looking quite dry! While the ground staff prepared the clay, the four players warmed up on the hard court and then they hit until just after 9am. It was an important day for all four players as Georgie and Holly Hutchinson both had matches to play while it was Alex and Holly Horsfall’s final day of preparation before they played in the qualifying of the next event tomorrow.

After Georgie completed her goals sheet we talked through the match and then at 9.45am she went on to play Tamara Kupkova from Slovakia. Georgie started the first set by breaking her opponent but then a cheap service game and a strong hold from Tamara meant that we were back on serve at *1-2. It was very windy this morning and you needed to play in two completely different ways depending on what end of the court you were playing from. Georgie worked that out at *1-2 and played two solid games hitting into the wind while her opponent went for too much and missed. Georgie then changed ends at 3-2* up and with the wind behind her she attacked the ball more to break her opponent and take the first set 4-2.

At this stage I felt as though the momentum was entirely with Georgie but we’d seen Tamara play in the round before and knew that she was not just going to roll over. Despite maintaining at least 1 winner in each game of the second set Georgie’s error count increased while her opponent hardly missed and within a flash the set was over and we were into a tie-break 3^rd set.

Georgie had the advantage of having the wind behind her for the start of the tie-break but when they changed ends the score was level at *3-3. Tamara then struggled to deal with the wind and because Georgie was being very solid it caused her opponent to go for more and eventually she missed. In the end Georgie took the match 4-2, 0-4, 7-4 and she did very well to come back from a difficult 2^nd set.

After the match Georgie and Holly had an hour before they were on for their doubles so we all quickly went to the local café on the promenade to get some food.

At 11.45am the girls went on court in some of the windiest conditions I’ve ever seen to face Daria Chemodanova and Ekaterina Kunina from Russia. The warm up was very interesting with serves bouncing 3 or 4 times before they reached the baseline while the windbreaks literally blew off of the fence!

The first set went with serve all the way through to the tie-break but it was the Russian pair that looked the better doubles team. They were moving more confidently and were much sharper with their volleys than Georgie and Holly which gave them the advantage during the tie-break. The Russians took a 5-3 lead before closing out the set 7-4.

The second set was completely the opposite of the first set; there were 8 breaks of serve and it was Georgie and Holly that were definitely the better team throughout. They moved more, finished more first volleys and attacked more 2^nd serve returns than they had in the first set. Holly served for the 2^nd set at *3-2 where they had a set point at sudden death deuce and then Georgie served for it at *4-3 but again the girls were broken. Unfortunately our girls played a poor tie-break and ended up losing it 7-3 but overall it was the best set of doubles I’d seen from them in the event.

The doubles finished at 1pm and at 2.15pm (while Katty, Holly Horsfall and Alex trained on the clay) Georgie went on for her semi-final against top seed Mina Markovic from Serbia. The 3 year age difference and the 200 place ranking difference made it a tough challenge for Georgie but she fought hard and tried to dictate the points against a much taller and stronger opponent. Unfortunately the level that Georgie needed to find on the day was just a little too far out of her comfort zone and as she tried to put pressure on her opponent she often over hit.

After losing the first set 4-1 Georgie broke in the first game of the second set to lead *1-0. She was then broken back and Mina went on to take a 3-1 lead but Georgie stuck to her tactics and battled well to break her opponent while she served for the match. After a close game and a very questionable call on match point Georgie was broken again to go down 4-1, 4-2. Despite the loss it was a good match for Georgie to evaluate where she is right now and identify what she needs to work on and develop to make the next transition into the top 200.

Following the match we said our thanks to the tournament organisers and Katty, Holly Horsfall and Alex signed in for the nest event with the referee which saved us a journey to the other club this evening. We then had our final walk along the promenade back to the hotel to pack up before getting a taxi to Podgorica.

The girls were very excited when they saw their bedroom in Hotel Keto and kept on telling us how big it was and how they had a kitchen – we’ll have to make sure they do some cooking for us then!!

At 7pm we met for dinner and even though 5 out of the 6 meals were good Holly Horsfall wasn’t happy with hers so I swapped my lovely chicken tagliatelle for her very average penne carbonara – the things I do for the players!!

Once we were all finished with our main meals it was birthday cake time for the birthday girl!

Schedule for tomorrow:

Katty Weymouth (GBR) (UNR) vs Katsiaryna Skachkova (BLR) (UNR) – 3^rd match after 10am

Alex Hagon (GBR) (1680) vs Jovan Macic (MNE) (UNR) – 4^th match after 10am