Monday 23rd April 2012
As we predicted, today was a complete washout on the clay but thanks to the bubble at the Bournemouth Gardens Tennis Centre the tournament managed to get all of the 2nd round matches played.
I met Dave at breakfast this morning and straight away we knew that the clay courts would be out of action for at least the whole of the morning due to a huge amount of overnight rain. We therefore made the decision to head straight to the Bournemouth Gardens to train indoors in their 3 court bubble. At 8.30am we were the only ones in there and had a good half an hour warm up followed by a 45 minute hit to get used to the pace of the courts and also warm Dave up for his match.
Originally Dave was scheduled for the 1st round of matches at 10am but we found out shortly after we’d finished practising that the referee had decided than any matches that hadn’t already started would go on first followed by the matches that had been suspended from yesterday. That meant that no-one really knew when they’d be playing so it was just a case of going back to the West Hants Club to find out if an actual order of play had been established! When we arrived we were told Dave would be not before 1pm with the hope that it would stop raining and they could go on the clay – there was no way that was going to happen!!
We decided to go back to the hotel and relax while calling the referee each hour to see if there was an update to the schedule. Eventually at 2pm we were told that Dave would be 6th match on in the bubble so we made our way back to the Club to warm up in the gym before heading back down to the Bournemouth Gardens.
Dave and Nick Jones eventually got on court just before 4.30pm to resume the match with Nick serving at *3-4, *40-30. The initial plan was to really attack the first point but when Nick stepped up and boomed an ace straight down the T that plan went out the window!! Dave held serve well though despite going 30-0 down and then broke Nick in quite a nervy game from both players to take the set 6-4.
Dave’s level improved hugely in the next 2 games as he stepped up and dominated the points more which saw him hold and break to go 2-0 up. He was then broken in a bit of a sloppy game after making 3 unforced errors but got back on track at 2-2 with a good hold. The set then went with serve until Dave made the breakthrough at 4-3* when he broke Nick’s serve and followed that by holding well with some big first serves to take the match 6-4, 6-3.
Overall it was a good performance and Dave adapted well to the change of surface from the clay to the indoor hard. There were spells in the second set where Dave really imposed his game on the match which is the kind of level he’ll need against 3rd seed Ashley Hewitt tomorrow.
After dinner we had a bit of a debrief of the match while Dave went through his daily stretching routine and then it was time for an early night ready for the last round of qualifying tomorrow.
Schedule for tomorrow:
(3) Ashley Hewitt (GBR) (1120) vs Dave Hodgetts (GBR) (UNR) – 2nd match after 10am (not before 11am)
