Monday 4th July 2011
Happy Independence Day to all the American readers 🙂
Big day today with all of the guys aiming to pick up some ITF and TE points in doubles before their main draw singles matches start tomorrow.
Even though we weren’t playing doubles until this afternoon we wanted to get on site early in the morning to get some practise in on the clay and do some doubles specific training. As usual we were warming up at 8am and started our 30 minutes on the clay at 8.30am drilling groundstrokes and volleys to make the most of being on the match courts. From there it was straight indoors for an hour to solely work on doubles specifics before going to the gym to cool down, complete injury prevention exercises and then stretch out. Everyone then signed in for doubles and we returned to the house to have a break.
We arrived back onsite around 1pm just as the doubles draws came out and everyone got in except Cameron so the order of play looked like this:
Brigit Folland (GBR) & Ella Taylor (GBR) vs Gaby Paul (GBR) & Natalie Syme (GBR) – 5th round on, Not Before 3.30pm
Emily Dunne (GBR) & Anouska Newman (GBR) vs (3) Emily Gibbens (GBR) & Yuriko Miyazaki (JPN) – 5th round on, Not Before 3.30pm
Athena Chrysanthou (GBR) & Nicole Daisley (GBR) vs Anneka Watts (GBR) & Sophie Watts (GBR) – 5th round on, Not Before 3.30pm
Costanza Pera (ITA) & Mia Smith (GBR) vs Emily Smith (GBR) & Patricia Valimaa (GBR) – 7th round on (3rd after 3.30pm)
Everything was running a bit behind today as some of the main draw matches were going on longer than expected so Gaby and Natalie didn’t end up going on until around 5.30pm. They had a tough match against a very solid Ella Taylor and an experienced Brigit Folland. They were a little nervous to start but came back from 3-0 down in the first, then lead 4-3 only for Ella and Brigit to take it 6-4. The second was a similar pattern to the first but again Gaby and Natalie played some good doubles at times and just needed to move more and dominate the net to try to upset their opponents rhythm and consistency. In the end Ella and Brigit won 6-4, 6-4 but it’s given Gaby a good run out before her singles main draw tomorrow.
While Gaby was on Anouska and Emily were also on court so I was trying to keep one eye on each match! Similar to Gaby and Natalie’s start Anouska and Emily went 4-1 down, then fought back to 4-3 (which is when I went to sit behind their court) and probably due to me moving (!!) they then lost the next 2 games to go down in the 1st set 6-3. I then moved back to watch Gaby and saw that Anouska and Emily played a very strong second set so I thought I’d stay away and leave them to it! They took the second set 6-2 and looked all over their opponents in the match tie break leading 8-5. At this point their was a smash that our girls should have buried but it was returned and gave their opponents a bit of belief which resulted in 5 points in a row for Gibbens and Miyazaki to take the match 6-4, 2-6, 10-8.
Mia & Costanza and Athena & Nicole both went on just after 7pm – one on court 1 and the other on court 6 which are either ends of the site – not ideal! So for the next hour and 45 minutes I was running back and forth between the two matches. Mia and Costanza took the first set with some good aggressive doubles play but after Mia was broken early in the second it looked as though their heads dropped and the second and third sets went against them as they went down 2-6, 6-3, 10-8.
Athena and Nicole were playing against the Watts’ sisters and played well in parts but it was obviously that Anneka and Sophie had played together a lot and the experience they had started to show. After a tight first set Anneka and Sophie didn’t let up and continued to have the edge in the second taking the match 6-4, 6-3.
**Picture**
By this time it was 8.45pm and we’d been on site for 13 hours!! The girls had a quick shower and then we got some food before getting the bus back. It was a long day and tough to lose 4 out of 4 but hopefully they’ve all learnt a lot from their matches and Gaby, Athena and Mia can use what they’ve learnt in their singles matches tomorrow.
Schedule for tomorrow:
Katie Dyson (GBR) vs (q) Mia Smith (GBR) – 2nd round on after 9am
Gaby Paul (GBR) vs Melanie Stokke (NOR) – 3rd round on after 9am
Emily Dunne (GBR) vs Athena Chrysanthou (GBR) – 3rd round on after 9am
