Wednesday 9th October 2013
It was a tough day for the team today as 3 losses out of 3 matches saw our first week of competition come to an abrupt end!
We had another early start this morning as Holly was scheduled first on at 8.30am. That meant a 6.30am breakfast and then a 7am shuttle to the club so that we could warm up and get on court to hit from 7.30-8am. Holly hit with Holly Hutchinson again and both girls trained well to prepare for their ¼ final matches.
Between 8am and when Holly went on court for her match at 8.30am we recapped on the notes from the match yesterday and then planned the goals and tactics for today’s match against top seed Ria Vaidya from Singapore.
Holly didn’t start the match too well and really struggled with her timing after finding it difficult to return Ria’s serve in the opening game. Even though the set went with serve until *3-4, I felt as though the momentum with mainly with Ria as she was holding comfortably and making Holly work hard to hold each of her own service games. Ria broke at *3-4 and then played a solid service game to take the opening set 6-3.
There wasn’t a lot between the two players throughout the first set and I knew that if Holly relaxed a little and didn’t try to hit the ball too well then her timing issues would be solved. Holly did just that at the start of the second set; after holding serve from *15-40 down in the opening game her confidence increased, she relaxed more and her timing got a lot better. Just like in the first set the games all went with serve but this time Holly made life a lot more difficult for Ria who was starting to show a few signs of frustration. At *5-5 Holly had a 14 point service game but despite taking a 40-15 lead she couldn’t hold serve and was broken – even a dog coming on to the court at 15-15 couldn’t help her!! Ria then held serve to take the match 6-3, 7-5.
It was a close match and Holly had her chances but Ria is a tough competitor and kept her nerve when Holly started to put the pressure on. The match will give Holly a lot of experience and hopefully she learnt a lot from her first ITF ¼ final.
Following the match we had a couple of hours before Holly was due back on court for her doubles so we quickly got a Tuk Tuk back to the hotel to get some lunch. We then returned to the club at 2pm and Holly went on for her first round match with Pei Hsuan Chen from Chinese Taipei at just before 3pm.
Despite the girls finding it a little difficult to communicate they started the match well and took a 4-2 lead. However, their opponents fought back and played some good doubles to win 5 out of the next 6 games to take the opening set 7-5. I was very surprised to see Holly and Pei lose the opening set as they were also playing well but three sudden death deuce games at 4-4*, 5-5* and *5-6 all went against them which was a major factor in the outcome of the set.
Our girls quickly put the disappointment of losing the first set behind them and raced to a 4-0* lead in the second set. I then thought they were going to have the same problem as in the first set as they lost 3 out of 3 sudden death deuce games out of 6 games but Pei held her serve when it mattered at *5-4 to take the set 6-4.
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Holly stepping into her backhand during the second set
The match tie-break third set was a real roller coaster; we went 1-3* down, then fought back to lead 7-5 and then finally their opponents took the next 5 point to take the match 7-5, 4-6, 10-7. It was a disappointing loss as I think Holly and Pei were the better doubles pair but if you don’t convert the important points then you are always going to struggle. Out of a total of 8 sudden death deuce game we only managed to win 3 of them!
Alex and his Sri Lankan partner Anish Wijesinghe followed Holly and Pei’s match on the same court. They had a tricky draw against Phillip De Bruyn (who Alex played in the singles) and Charlie Ridout but after our boys broke Charlie in the opening game it looked as though it was going to be a close match. Phillip and Charlie broke straight back and then went on to take a 5-2 lead before Alex held serve for the first time whilst saving a set point. That gave the boys a lift and they fought back to level the set at 5-5*. They then narrowly lost the next game to sudden death deuce but held serve to take it to a tie-break. Unfortunately Phillip and Charlie played a strong breaker and took it 7-3.
Alex continued to play well in the second set and if it wasn’t for the energy that he brought to the court the boys would have never fought back as they did in the first set. His doubles was very sharp but he had to do a lot of work during the match and that took its toll in the second set. In the end Phillip and Charlie took the match 7-6(3), 6-2 but I was pleased with the level that Alex produced and how he kept fighting until the very last point.
Those three results today brought our first week to an end and Holly and Alex have opted to have a rest day tomorrow before starting their preparation on the clay on Friday. We’ll then have three days of training before the main draw of the second week starts on Monday.
