Tuesday 17th May 2011
It was a very positive day today as Devan took on second seed Jennifer Brady in her second round match.
We had breakfast this morning at 8am, headed over to the site at 9.20am, started our warm up at 9.40am and then got on court as planned at 10am. I hit with Devan to begin with but after 15 minutes Peggy Porter asked if she could hit a few balls before she went on for her match so Devan ended up finishing her warm up with her. The session was good, Devan was striking the ball well and at just after 10.30am we were all done and ready to go. The next hour and a half went quite quickly as we spent some time planning the goals and tactics for the match and at 12.15pm the girls were called to the court.
We knew today was going to be a tough match but the most important thing was that Devan didn’t give the girl too much respect and also made her work hard for every point. After the first couple of games Brady knew she had a fight on her hands and she wasn’t impressed at how tough the match was turning out to be. Devan broke serve in the first game and then held to take a 2-0 lead before Brady got on the scoreboard. The girls then exchanged breaks until 4-4 when Devan went up 40-0 on Brady’s serve and looked in complete control but a high loopy ball from Brady hit the baseline and ended up on the top of the back fence which unsettled Devan. That point had a huge impact on the set and it resulted in Devan hitting 4 unforced errors and then a further 6 more in the next game to lose the set 6-4. The set had been the best one that Devan had played on the whole trip, she was aggressive, calm and really confident in what she was doing, it was only that slip in concentration that cost her. The second set started again with Devan breaking Brady in the first game but the next 3 games went against her leaving her 1-3 down with her opponent serving. The next game was massive, it was 20 points long with Devan withstanding a huge amount of pressure from Brady – she ended up breaking her serve and only hit 2 unforced errors in the whole game. I really thought this was a turning point for Devan but she struggled to hold serve as Brady upped her level to break, hold and break again to take the match 6-4, 6-2 in just under 2 hours. Brady hit a total of 21 winners in that second set and deserved to take it but Devan had her chances in the first.
It was a really good performance from Devan against a top 200 player and when we reflected on it later over lunch she agreed that it was one of her best performances over the past year. Her tennis level has increased week by week and her mental level is not far behind – another few matches like this one and Devan will be coming through them with a win.
We got back to the hotel just after 5pm and I then had two 45 minute telephone conversations with Virgin Atlantic as they were trying to charge us more than we should have been charged to change our tickets! It’s still not sorted but hopefully we’ll be able to do that in the morning and catch the evening flight back to London.
Overall it’s been a great trip and I think Devan has benefited greatly from having someone watching every ball she hits in training and in her matches over the past three weeks. It’s always hard work for the players when they’re away at tournaments and they’ve got someone pushing them to improve everyday; in three weeks we have competed in three events, put in a lot of training hours on and off the court and only had 2 full rest days. The experience that players get from a trip like this is invaluable; it’s not always about how many points that you pick up on a trip but how much you’ve learnt and how much your game has improved. If you keep learning and keep improving from every match you can’t lose.
The last word as always in left to the player so Devan will be writing the final Blog (hopefully from Miami airport) tomorrow evening but I’ll leave you with an interesting sign that I saw for the first time today (the courts are just behind the lake!):
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