Monday 27th April 2015
It was another good day at the Botswana National Tennis Centre today as Toby won his 1st round Main Draw match and also secured a good partner for the doubles.
Due to Toby being the 1st match on at 9am we were up early and at breakfast by 6.30am and then left with Benny for the club at 7am. We’ve been used to it being pretty warm out here but when we stepped out of the front door of the guesthouse this morning we both wondered whether it might have been a bit cold for shorts and t-shirt! – especially when Benny was wrapped up like he was going to the Artic!
Once we’d both gone through our physical warm up we had a quick game of ‘Bounce’ then hit from 8-8.30am. Toby was looking much more confident from the back of the court and I think yesterday evening’s session had a lot to do with that. He was also serving a lot more consistently and by the time we’d finished we were both happy with the level that he was playing at.
In the half an hour break between when we finished and when Toby went on for his match we went through the game plan & goals and also made sure that Toby had signed in for the doubles with Ngonidzashe (“Goni”) Makambwa from Zimbabwe. He then went on court at 9am to face Mpho Mbizo from Botswana.
From the beginning of the match it was clear that Toby was a lot more comfortable on the court than he was yesterday and despite his early service percentage being a little low, he was able to dominate the points from the back of the court. Toby raced to a 4-0* lead but after Mpho held in the next game his confidence increased considerably and he went on to break Toby to make the score 4-2*. Toby responded well and hit 5 winners in the next two games to break and hold serve to take the opening set 6-2.
The second set was the best set of tennis that Toby has played since we arrived here; he was looking very confident, hitting aggressively from the baseline and also creating a lot of opportunities to come in and finish points from the net. Toby took a 2-0* lead before Mpho managed to get a game on the board but it was the last one he won in the match as Toby went on to take the next 4 games in a row to win the match 6-2, 6-1.
It was a much more confident, composed and focussed match than yesterday which will give Toby a big boost before he takes on the 5th seed tomorrow in the 2nd round.
After the match we headed over to Airport Junction Mall to have some lunch and then returned to the club to check out the doubles draw. Unfortunately the referee has had a few problems with the draws over the past couple of days and had to re-do the boy’s doubles draw after using the wrong ranking! Eventually he got it right and it saw Toby and Goni get a bye in the opening round:
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Boy’s Doubles Draw
As Toby didn’t have a doubles match today we decided to return to the guesthouse for a couple of hours this afternoon before returning to the club to have a good training session from 4.30-6pm. Toby was keen just to find his rhythm again and also play a few service and returning games to prepare himself for the match tomorrow.
Once we were finished we showered and changed before going back over to Airport Junction for dinner at Rhapsody’s. Toby had a great meal but unfortunately I think they forgot to cook my chicken! They got it right in the end though and I’m sure it’s not going to put us off going back there for lunch and dinner tomorrow!
Schedule for tomorrow:
(Q) Toby Huffer (GBR) (UNR) vs (5) Michael Copeland (RSA) (763) – 4th match after 8.30am (not before 12pm)
Steele Greyling (RSA) & Danrich Kruger (RSA) vs (8) Toby Huffer (GBR) & Ngonidzashe Makambwa (ZIM) – 6th match after 8.30am
