Friday 4th July 2014
Happy Independence Day to all of my America friends / followers!
After spending the last 5 weeks working with a senior player over the grass court season it was back to the ITC schedule and the first stop of the summer is the Edinburgh ITF.
Toby Huffer and I got the train from Bexley to Edinburgh yesterday so that we could have a full day training on the clay today before the Qualifying of the ITF starts tomorrow. When we left home Toby was 35th Alternate but I always say to players and parents that it’s worth going and signing in for the British events as even Edinburgh is only 4-5 hours away by train.
Toby and I had a good breakfast at 8am this morning and then headed over to the Craiglockhart Tennis Centre at 9am to try and get a morning practice in before the rain came down that was forecast for midday.
After a good warm up we worked hard for an hour and 15 minutes through the drizzling rain that always seems to be apparent at this tournament! I hadn’t been on court with Toby since the two ITFs in Namibia back in May but it was good to see that his hitting level and his work rate has improved over the past six weeks. The morning session was very general so that Toby could get a feel for the ball and get used to the Green Clay courts. Once he had found a good level with all of his shots we ended the session and went to the gym to cool down and stretch out.
While we had lunch we sat by the courts watching some of the LTA Grade 2 tournament finals and then at 2.30pm we headed over to the other side of the tournament site to warm up for our 2nd session of the day.
Toby decided that he wanted to play a lot of points so that he felt sharp for tomorrow and he said there’s no better way than playing a practice set with me (I think he really wanted to get some revenge for our set in Namibia!!). After a tight first 3 games where Toby had both game and break points I ended up sneaking a 2-1 lead, but then I managed to break and hold to move 4-1 ahead. Toby continued to play some aggressive tennis and won the next two games to get the set back on serve but as the rain got heavier I somehow broke back and then held to take the set 6-3! The level of the set was good and I was happy with the way Toby played throughout.
We headed to the gym again after the session so that Toby could cool down and stretch out while I got stuck into some very tough intervals on the running machine to keep up with my training for the Great North Run in September.
Just before we left the club we checked to see how many players had signed in for Qualifying and were told that it would Toby would be very close to the cut off but if more players signed in then he might miss out.
Over dinner we found out that exactly 32 players had signed in so everyone that signed in got in which made it well worth taking the gamble to come! Here’s the draw:
Boy’s Qualifying Draw
After dinner we headed to the Games Arcade at the Bowling Alley in Fountain Park for a couple of games at Air Hockey and some very competitive racing car games – despite losing at Nascar I was pleased to take Toby down at Outrun!
Schedule for tomorrow:
Toby Huffer (GBR) (UNR) vs William Barrett (GBR) (UNR) – 6th match after 9am
