Sunday 26th August 2012
It was a very positive day at Chiswick today and even though Dave didn’t manage to get two wins on the board he still performed well and showed a much improved level compared to last week.
Due to some engineering work on the train line today I wasn’t able to get off close to the club so I met Dave at Barnes train station and he drove the rest of the way to Chiswick. Before Dave got there I saw George Morgan and his brother Rob who were going to get the train from Barnes to Chiswick but they hadn’t heard of the changes to the train timetable so we also gave them a lift – 4 big guys with 3 tennis bags and 2 rucksacks in a small Ford Fiesta – beautiful!!
We got to the club at 9.30am and Dave and I went straight to the gym to go through our normal 30 minute warm up before we went down on court for Dave’s pre-match hit. After about 25 minutes Dave was feeling loose and confident with the way he was hitting the ball so we finished the session and he went off to get changed for his match. Fifteen minutes before he was about to go on court we met up again to go through the tactics for the match and set some goals – today it was all about Dave dictating play and moving forwards to the net to control the points as Sam is a very solid baseliner.
Qualifying gets underway at Virgin Riverside
At 11am Dave went on court having never beaten Sam Hutt in 3/4 meetings over the past 4/5 years. Dave took control early to break Sam’s serve at 1-1 but was immediately broken back after struggling with his serve. The standard of the tennis was very high from both players and Dave managed to control a lot of the points from the back of the court which gave him a lot of opportunities to move forwards to finish the points from the net. The set went with serve until 4-4 when Dave broke and then held well to take the set 6-4 after just over an hour and fifteen minutes!
Dave started the second set well but it was always going to be difficult to maintain the high level that he set in the first set. He broke at 2-2 but was broken back straight away and then the set went with serve until 4-4. Dave then broke and served for the match at 5-4 and then again at 6-5 but Sam produced some good tennis to break him each time. In fact Sam played much better returning games than serving games and that resulted in the set being decided by a tie-break. During the second set it was often Sam’s level that was determining who was winning / losing the points and fortunately for us he hit 6 unforced errors in the tie-break to hand Dave the set and the match 6-4, 7-6(2) in just over 2 and a half hours.
Overall it was a very positive match and in the first set Dave really showed that he had put his disappointing performance last week at Nationals behind him and was eager to perform at his best today.
We had a break of a couple of hours between matches which gave us a chance to talk through the match in detail while we had some lunch but we had to wait longer than expected for our chicken and pasta as the first serving of it came out with the chicken almost completely raw! The chef did come out of the kitchen to apologise and in the end we managed to get a decent meal!!
At around 3.30pm Dave went back on court for his second round match against Adam Skalsky who had received a bye in the first round. At the start of the first set both players were holding serve comfortably and I got the feeling that it was either going to come down to one break of serve or it would end up in a tie-break. Once again Dave was hitting well from the back of the court but a slight lapse in concentration at *3-3 *40-15 serving ended up costing him the set as Adam broke and then held to take it 6-3.
Dave had a toilet break at the end of the set to regroup and then played a good opening two games but when he was broken at *1-1 in the second set I did wonder weather the tough match this morning had taken it’s toll on him. At 1-3 Dave responded well by raising his intensity and working hard to get the set level at 3-3 after breaking Adam’s serve. Unfortunately he then struggled with his next two service games and was broken in both games to go down 6-3, 6-3. Again there were lots of positives to take from the match; in the past Dave might have rolled over after the disappointing end to the first set but he showed great fight and determination to come back from 1-3 down in the second set especially when he did not serve well throughout the match.
After the match we went straight into the gym to cool down and stretch out before we sat down and talked through the positives and learning points in detail. Overall Dave was quite pleased with the way the day had gone and now our attention turns to getting into the doubles tomorrow.
After getting some food on the way to Barnes train station I got the train back home while Dave went back to his hotel. My day wasn’t quite over there and after a quick stop at my house to get some kit I was straight up t the gym to do some interval training to keep up to date with my training programme – not nice at 9pm but it’s got to be done!
