Colombo U18 ITF Grade 4, Day 2

Saturday 12^th October 2013

It was another great day of preparation here in Colombo despite feeling the very distant effects of cyclone Phailin overnight.

Just after I posted the Blog last night I looked out of our balcony window to see the rain lashing down and very strong winds blowing the trees sideways. I then found out that cyclone Phailin was on its way past Sri Lanka as it passes through the Bay of Bengal.

The overnight rain caused us a little problem this morning; we had planned on getting to the tennis centre at 8.30am but due to the rain the courts were completed soaked. The hotel court was drying out quite well but unfortunately it was completely fully booked from 8am until 8pm so instead we hit the gym for a strength and conditioning session! Both Alex and Holly followed their own travelling programmes while I had a bit of a workout of my own.

By 10.45am we were all finished and so we headed back to the apartment to shower before ordering our standard chicken and pasta from room service!

Throughout the morning we had kept in contact with the tournament referee so that we knew how the courts were drying out and as soon as he said that the clay courts were looking good we headed straight over. When we arrived Alex got a bit of treatment on his forearm by the physio and then we headed down to the practice clay courts to warm up for our afternoon session.

To our surprise, when we went on court at 1pm four out of the five practice courts were empty so we chose to go on court 3 which is the Sri Lankan Davis Cup court. Holly and Alex continued from where they left off after yesterday’s session and found a good level from the start. We spent quite a lot of time hitting two against one so that the person on their own got a very good workout. We trained like that from the back of the court and also with the person on their own at the net so that the players had a chance to work on both areas of their game. Once they were happy with how they were playing we went into a few point based drills before hitting some serves and finishing the session with serving points. I think it was one of the hottest afternoons since we arrived but by now the players are well acclimatised and they both put in a very good training session.

We finished the session just after 2.30pm and, after the physio gave my forearm another hammering (I think I sweated more in the 25 minute physio session than I did for an hour and a half on the court!), we got a Tuk Tuk back to the hotel. The players then stretched out in the gym and then they had a couple of hours to themselves before it was time for dinner.

Tonight’s theme was “Mediterranean” and after having the same buffet last week we were very much looking forward to this one – the chicken wraps were amazing!