Saturday 25th August 2012
Today was the final day of practice before the next block of Aegon Pro-Series events commence in England which include two $10k events in London; Chiswick and Roehampton and then another $10k at The Nottingham Tennis Centre.
Over the next two weeks I’ll be working with Dave Hodgetts as he looks to qualify for his first Futures event and then hopefully go on to secure his first ATP point. I was with Dave last week when he competed in the British National Junior Championships in Nottingham and then from there we trained at Chiswick to prepare for qualifying tomorrow. Dave’s normal training base when he’s in the UK is at Chiswick so in effect this is his “home” tournament!
After putting in a good training day yesterday Dave had a lie-in this morning to make sure he’s fresh for his matches tomorrow but I was up and out of my house at 6am to keep up to date with my training schedule ahead of the BUPA Great North Run half marathon on the 16th September. This year will be my 11th consecutive Great North Run and I’ll be running for the amazing Make-A-Wish Foundation who grant magical wishes to children with life-threatening illnesses. If you would like to support me and the charity please go to www.justgiving.com/RobsGNR2012.
I then left my house just before 12pm to drive to the train station and make my way into London before heading back out to Chiswick. The journey takes around 2 hours from door to door which isn’t too bad and it means we can save a lot of money on food and hotels during the week.
I met up with Dave at 2.30pm and we had a chat about goals for this week before we warmed up in the gym and then went on court from 3.30-4.30pm with Borna Coric from Croatia. Borna is one of the best 15 year olds in the world and has been basing himself at the Virgin Active centre in Chiswick with David Felgate for the last few weeks. He’s using the Futures event at Chiswick as a warm up before he heads across the Atlantic for the US Open Junior Championships which start on the 3rd September.
Dave and Borna had a very good session as they both fine tuned the work they’ve been doing on their games to get themselves ready for qualifying tomorrow. They warmed up and then went through a couple of drills before finishing the practice with a tie-break which Borna managed to edge 7-5.
Dave & Borna training indoors due to heavy rain
After practice Dave and I headed up to the gym to cool down and have a thorough stretch out before he headed back to his hotel and I got back on the train home.
Here’s the Singles Qualifying Draw:
Schedule for tomorrow:
(WC) Dave Hodgetts (GBR) (UNR) vs (WC) Sam Hutt (GBR) (UNR) – 1st match at 11am
Winner to play Adam Skalsky (GBR) (UNR) – 3rd match after 11am (Not before 2pm)
