Monday 31st October 2011
I’m always up for a bit of Halloween but unfortunately we didn’t get any tricks or treats today in the last round of qualifying in Davos.
It was nice this morning to leave the room for breakfast with the Sun starting to come up as opposed to the last few mornings when it’s been pitch black! We had a good breakfast and then managed to catch a bus half way to the Tennis Centre which meant we arrived there just after 7.45am. Mia then had a good physical warm up and we were on court hitting at 8.30am – unfortunately it wasn’t with the girl we had planned to hit with as she cancelled so Mia had to hit with a 6ft boy! She actually hit quite well but it was a little difficult to get into a great rhythm as the boy was hitting very hard – returning was a bit of an issue too which would later cause us a lot of problems.
After the match before Mia’s went to three sets she eventually got on court around 11am to play 4th seed Lina Hohnhold from Germany. From the 1st game Mia struggled with her returns and consistency and that gave her opponent more belief to stay in the rally and wait for the mistake to come. At 0-3 down Mia held serve but it took until 3-5 with her opponent serving before she really got into a groove with her returns against the tricky lefty. Mia then had an opportunity to break back to get the match back on serve but a cheap point at 3-5*, 40-30* gave the German a boost and then she went on to take the set 6-3. A bit like yesterday my thoughts at this point were that if Mia could just keep working the ball in the rally and increase her consistency then the girl just wouldn’t be able to live with her.
Unfortunately that didn’t quite happen as Mia was broken in the 1st game of the second set. She fought hard to break straight back only to give up her serve rather cheaply again to trail 1-2. From there it was a similar pattern to the first set with the German playing a solid game and just waiting for Mia to miss. Mia played some good tennis at times and won 4/5 points from the net during the set but she just struggled to string 3/4 good points together in a single game. Mia broke Hohnhold at 1-4 but again was broken back at 2-4 and then her opponent played a good service game to take the match 6-3, 6-2. It was a disappointing match but sometimes you just have days where it wouldn’t make a difference how long you stayed out there for you just wouldn’t be able to find the level needed to win the match.
To Mia’s credit she got back on court later in the day and worked very hard finding a much higher level than I’ve seen from her in quite some time. We spent 30 minutes on the squash court working on her using her body better to control the ball and then an hour and 15 minutes on the court hitting with the main draw players. I’ve said it many times before but at this age the development is much more important than the winning; I’ve been to events where players have won the tournament but not improved their game and also to events where players have lost in qualies but learnt more than they ever would have done from training or individual lessons. Mia learnt a lot today and will be a better player because of it.
Mia training hard despite a tough loss – CLICK FOR VIDEO
We stayed at the club for dinner to see if any Lucky Losers would get into the main draw but unfortunately everyone turned up for sign in. Mia’s currently 4th Lucky Loser so only has a very slim chance of getting in but she’ll team up with Italian Costanza Pera (who she played with in Edinburgh) for the doubles and hopefully they get in.
Early start tomorrow as now it’s back to a full day’s training and due to the main draw players practising from 7.30am we’ll have to be at the centre warmed up and ready to hit as soon as the doors open at 6.45am.
