Sunday 22nd April 2012
It was a good day at the West Hants Club today but it had to end a little prematurely due to heavy rain during the 2nd round of matches.
I met Dave for breakfast this morning at 7.30am and then we left the hotel at 8.15am to head over to the tennis centre to warm up in the gym. The weather had been good all morning and the clay was fit to play on by the time Dave and Tom Allen went on court at 9am for their pre-match warm up. It was a solid 30 minute session; Dave and Tom were both hitting well and after a couple of service games at the end of the session both players were ready to go. It was just left for Dave and I to go through his pre-match chat and set some goals for the match before he went on at 10am against Patrick Ogier from the Channel Islands.
Dave started slowly and after being broken in the first game soon found himself 2-0 down. He responded well though and upped his serving level to hold comfortably before breaking back to get the match back on serve. The next 3 games went with serve but the momentum was starting to shift in Dave’s direction and he finally got the breakthrough when he broke Patrick’s serve to lead 5-3 and serve for the first set. Unfortunately a cheap game saw Dave get broken but, after collecting his thoughts at the change of ends, he came out and broke Patrick’s serve to take the first set 6-4. Having got the first set under his belt Dave got on top early in the second set breaking at 1-0* up and from there on he never looked back breaking again at 2-1 and 4-1 to take the match 6-4, 6-1.
It was a pretty good first round match; the conditions were difficult as it was quite cold and a little windy but Dave was mentally strong throughout and deserved the win. After cooling down in the gym we went through some light dynamic stretches before we got some lunch and relaxed before the second round of matches.
Since Dave had come off court the weather had started to turn and it looked as if it was going to rain before his scheduled match time of 2pm – in fact the first time it actually rained was just when Dave and Nick Jones walked on to the court. After a brief delay the boys were back on court but it was Nick that started faster breaking Dave immediately and going on to take a 2-0*, 30-0* lead. Dave then fought back to hold, break and hold again to completely turn the set around and lead 3-2*. By this stage the rain was coming down again but it wasn’t quite enough to stop play so they managed to get another couple of games in before play was eventually suspended with Dave leading 4-3*, 30-40*. After a slow start it was actually a great effort from Dave to turn the set around and actually come off court leading. As soon as Dave came off court we had a good chat about what was happening and what he will need to do when he goes back on but after another hour of heavy rain play was suspended for the day at 4.45pm.
We then went straight back into the gym to have a long cool down and a thorough stretch out before leaving the centre just before 6pm. We were both really pleased with the day and Dave’s in a great position going into the match tomorrow.
For dinner tonight we were joined by Dave’s brother Andy who had been down all day to watch Dave’s matches and it was just a short walk down the road to Prezzo where we managed to order a huge amount of food without it costing us much thanks to my Tastecard and another voucher we’d downloaded!!
Schedule for tomorrow:
Dave Hodgetts (GBR) (UNR) vs (13) Nick Jones (GBR) (1722) – 1st match at 10am – to finish 4-3*, 30-40*
Winner to play either (3) Ashley Hewitt (GBR) (1120) or Nikki Roenn (GBR) (UNR) – 4th match after 10am (not before 2pm)
