Tuesday 28th April 2015
We had a big high today and also a pretty low low but we got through the day in one piece and are still fighting hard in one of our two events.
Even though Toby’s singles match had a ‘not before’ time of 12pm we needed to be up early so that we had time to practice, get some lunch and then get back to the club with enough time to warm up before 12pm. Rarely do matches go on court around their ‘not before’ times but we had to make sure we were back on site in case other matches had gone quicker than expected!
That meant it was a 7am breakfast, a 8am taxi ride to the club so that we could warm up at 8.30am ready for our practice court booking of 9am – military precision as always! We actually ended up hitting for 45 minutes during which time we warmed everything up and then did some specific drills based on what we knew about Toby’s opponent. These included making sure Toby’s first volley was sharp (as he’d be looking to move forwards as much as possible to take his opponent’s time away) and also feeding Toby a lot of ‘heavy’ balls as we knew that Michael Copeland has a pretty spinny forehand.
Once we were happy with the level Toby had found we showered and changed and then made our way over to Airport Junction Mall for an early lunch.
We arrived back on site at around 11.30am and realised straight away that we had quite a bit of time before Toby would go on. That wasn’t a problem though as it gave us enough time to watch some of the other 2nd round matches before making sure we were fully prepared for Toby’s match.
At just before 2pm Toby went on to face 5th seed Michael Copeland from South Africa. It can be a little tricky for seeds to face Qualifiers in a 48 draw as in the back of their minds they know that, while it’s their first match in the tournament, the Qualifier might have already had a few matches to get used to the surface / balls / conditions etc. That was slightly the case today as Michael started a little nervously while Toby looked a lot more confident than in his previous two matches.
After each player held their first service game Toby struggled in his next one and ended up being broken. However, in the very next game he produced some of his best tennis on the trip to take control of Michael’s service game but when it came to the final ball of the rally he struggled to execute the winning shot. That gave Michael a bit of confidence which he used to race to a *1-5 lead. Toby managed to hold his next service game and again had chances to break back but unfortunately he lost the set 6-2.
The first set was actually a lot closer than the scoreline suggests but at the time Toby didn’t realise it and, by the time the second set started, Toby felt as though he had a massive mountain to climb. At the same time Michael had relaxed, found his rhythm and had a lot of confidence which he once again used to control the set. Toby fought hard despite going 3-0 down early on but was unable to turn the set around and eventually lost the match 6-2, 6-0.
As Toby had another match later in the day it was important that he understood what had happened in his singles match and what he needed to do in the next match to turn things around. We had a good honest debrief and Toby realised that he could have been a lot more positive in his singles match so it was up to him to make things right in the doubles.
At 5.15pm (just as the sun was starting to go down) Toby and Goni went on to face Steele Greyling and Danrich Kruger from South Africa. The match started on one of the back courts but at 1-1* they were told that they needed to move courts to a floodlit one at the next change of ends. Toby and Goni managed to break Danrich’s serve in that game (after being 40-15 down when they were told they needed to change courts!) and when they went under lights they extended their lead to 3-1*. Unfortunately Toby was broken at *3-2 and then the set went closely with serve until *4-5 when Toby served well to win a ‘Sudden Death Deuce’ point which was also a set point for Steele and Danrich. After that the set went into a tie-break and, after Toby and Goni got a break-through to lead 5-3*, they went on to take the tie-break 7-5.
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Toby and Goni on their way to victory in the doubles this evening
Taking that first set really quietened down the South African’s while at the same time Toby and Goni found more energy. From *1-1 Toby and Goni won 3 games in a row to Sudden Death Deuce points and even though they lost the next game to another Sudden Death Deuce point they held Goni’s serve and then broke Danrich to take the match 7-6(5), 6-2. Toby got a little nervous on a big smash in second to last game and also a simple 2nd serve return on Match Point but it was understandable as he was playing for his first ITF points!
After the match Toby and I were both really pleased that he’s managed to secure his first ranking points but we also both know that his singles performance was not as good as we want it to be. We’ve still got the doubles ¼ final to look forward tomorrow and also more training to work on Toby’s singles game to prepare him for next week.
Schedule for tomorrow:
(1) Timothy Dollman (RSA) & Calvin Jordaan (RSA) vs (8) Toby Huffer (GBR) & Ngonidzashe Makambwa (ZIM) – 4th match after 9am (not before 2.30pm)
