Bujumbura U18 ITF Grade 5 (week 1), Day 3

Sunday 20th November 2011

The rain came down again today for the third day in a row but Jack managed to avoid it as he made light work of his match to qualify for the main draw in his first ITF event.

Everyone was on time for breakfast this morning; Julia and Mia were first down as they were practising early and Jack came down a little later as he was only hitting for 30 minutes for his pre-match warm up.

When we arrived at the courts we found out that the draw had changed due to two of the Bisham boys playing each other when they should have been separated. This meant that Jack was now facing a local Burundian wildcard but as there were still only 5 matches in qualifying the start time remained the same.

The girls took to the court at 9.30am and worked hard to find a much more consistent level before Jack shared half the court to hit with Alistair from Bisham Abbey at 10am. Despite Jack shanking a few balls out of the court and making me climb up on top of the clubhouse roof to retrieve them he had a really good warm up and by 10.30am he was all done and ready to go through his pre-match talk. Jack was very specific with his pre-match sheet and set specific goals that he wanted to achieve during the match – I always think it’s good to set some goals as that way, win or lose, you can still come off the court feeling as though you’ve achieved something. I’ve seen so many players in the past win a match easily but not improve their game and these are the type of events where you have the opportunity to do both.

After doing some movement work to get Jack sharp he went on court at 11am and from the warm up it was obvious he was a little nervous. It was totally expected as this is his first ITF event and he did well to maintain a positive attitude after struggling with his consistency in the opening games. Despite being nervous and losing his serve from 1-0 up Jack worked hard to stay in the rallies and keep the local crowd quiet. At 4-1 he relaxed a little more and convincingly held serve and then broke to take the set 6-1.

Jack knew that his opponent wasn’t going to rollover after the first set and he upped his level to race to a 4-0 lead. He was playing a much more aggressive game by this stage but he did have a bit of a shocking service game at 4-1 as he managed to shank 3 serves in a row over the back fence!! By the 4th serve I was thinking he might be considering hitting an underarm serve but he managed to regain his focus to get the ball onto the strings and into the court!! After that blip Jack won the next two games to take the match 6-1, 6-1 and qualify for the main draw.

By this time it was around 12.45pm so we went back to the hotel for Jack to shower and change and then we all had some lunch. The plan was then to get back on court at 3pm to train but once again the rain came down so our plans changed to everyone doing some school work. After signing in for main draw we got on court at 4.30pm and had a really good hours training with me working primarily with Jack on areas to improve from his match and the girls working on their specifics together. We were then kicked off the court by a local Vice-President who wanted to use the 1st court for a bit of doubles. I was able to make them wait a little while so that we could finish our session but I wasn’t going to argue too much as he did bring his whole armed security team with him.

After Mia completed her fitness programme and Julia and Jack had a full stretch out we went back to the hotel to shower and change before going back to the club to see the main draw. It was then time for dinner which included a few games of cards and a couple of dares – I think me and Jack got off lightly with press-ups though as Julia had to go up to the counter to order some bread with some steak sauce on her forehead!

Schedule for tomorrow:

Andriatokiana Ratsimandresy (MAD) (UNR) vs (q) Jack Large (GBR) (UNR) – 2nd round after 9am

Jone Kruger (RSA) (UNR) vs Mia Smith (GBR) (UNR) – 3rd round after 9am