Monday 30th March 2015
Unfortunately today ended up being the last day of our trip as Toby didn’t manage to get into the doubles but it wasn’t without its highs, lows and in-betweens!
We knew that it was going to be a tough ask for Toby to get into the doubles as he lost in qualifying but there’s always a chance if you manage to find the right partner. With that in mind we were up early, had breakfast and got the 7.30am shuttle to the club. We then warmed up and got on court to train before the Main Draw singles matches started. Despite the gusting winds we still managed to have a good hit and then at 9am when the matches started it was time to find Toby a doubles partner.
After two and a half hours of asking around and checking who had already signed in, Toby found an American who didn’t have a partner, the only problem was that he lost in qualifying too! Under normal circumstances there would have been no way that the boys would have got in as their ‘doubles priority’ would have been too low but as Toby’s partner had spent the last month training in Barbados there was the possibility of a wildcard.
We waited until just after 1pm for the doubles list to be complied by the referee but we were then told that due to the number of players from Barbados that had signed in we were not awarded a wildcard. It was disappointing not to get in but I think we both knew there was only a very slim chance of getting the wildcard.
As soon as we found out that Toby wasn’t in the draw we said our goodbyes and headed back to the hotel to pack up and make our way to the airport. Our flights were originally booked for later in the week but to try and save a bit of money we thought we’d try our hand at getting on today’s flight – the only problem was that because Easter is this weekend all the British Airways flights are full for the next 4 days!
After a few hours of negotiating, smiling nicely and a little bit of begging (!!) we managed to get a flight home for tomorrow … from Trinidad! It wasn’t a problem though as we got a late flight from Barbados to Trinidad and then we’re on the British Airways flight from Trinidad to London tomorrow afternoon – all that and we didn’t have to pay a penny in change fees – thank you British Airways!
So that brings our trip to an end, in terms of results for Toby it was disappointing but the guy that beat him was very good and there’s no harm in losing to a better player on the day.
Now we’ll go back home and get prepared for the next trip which is in 3 weeks to Botswana and Namibia. Toby did well out in Namibia last year and was close to picking up ITF points in both weeks so let’s hope that this week he can go one step further.
