Tuesday 5th July 2011
For Gaby, Athena and Mia it was main draw day today and a chance to get some points on the board after their tough doubles matches yesterday.
It was the same routine as it has been all week this morning; 7am breakfast, taxi to the site at 7.45am, warm up at 8am and start hitting on court at 8.30am. All of the girls had a good warm up on the back courts, the weather was holding off and by 9am they were all ready to go.
Mia was second round of matches on and was up against Katie Dyson. Like many U14 girls matches it was all about whoever held their serve a couple of times was probably going to win each set!! After 8 games it was 4-4 and there had been 8 breaks of serve but Mia did well to then hold and break to take the first set. Mia deserved to be a set up as she was playing strong aggressive tennis but at the start of the second she became too passive and Katie was by no means about to give her the match. Katie broke twice early on and managed to keep hold of her serve to take the set 6-3. Due to Athena and Gaby being on court I didn’t see the whole of the third but the parts I did see were similar to the second set with Mia not continuing the level of the first and getting frustrated with herself for making too many unforced errors. In the end Katie came through the match 4-6, 6-3, 6-4 – a disappointing one for Mia as if she had maintained the first set level she would have won the match.
Athena was taking on qualifier Emily Dunne who was a tough player and made life very difficult for Athena throughout. The matches that Emily had played in qualifying would have built her confidence and prepared her well for today as she played a strong aggressive game whilst enjoying the pace that Athena was giving her. Athena’s base game was solid but she didn’t do enough to hurt Emily in the first set as she went down 6-1. To Athena’s credit she really stepped up in the second and took the ball on a lot more forcing Emily to defend and when she did Athena came forwards and finished the point well. Apart from an early exchange of breaks the second set went with serve all the way until Athena was 6-5 up. Emily then held to take it to a tie break and finished the match off by taking the breaker 7-3. Athena did well this week to be out there playing as she had to take time off from competing last week due to illness and I know she’ll take the positives from this match into her next events.
Gaby was our last match on court and was taking on Melanie Stokke from Norway on Court 1. Gaby struggled from the start with her consistency and that played a huge part in the match as she was taking on a player that was happy to feed off her pace and just wait until Gaby missed. Melanie got an early break in the first and never really let Gaby get back into it as she went on to take the set 6-2. At the start of the second Gaby found a more consistent level whilst still being aggressive and got a break to lead 2-1 only for Melanie to break straight back and hold to make it 3-2. By this time it had been raining for about 15 minutes but I think the referee made too quick a decision to call the players off. These green clay courts can hold a lot of water and even though I wanted to get Gaby off the court to talk to her I didn’t particularly want her to go indoors. After a 30 minute break the referee decided to move the matches indoors. After an extended warm up to get used to the courts Gaby held serve to make it 3-3 but struggled again with her consistency. She was trying too hard to win the points too early in the rally resulting in Melanie taking the next 3 games and the match 6-2, 6-3.
So after a tough 4 losses yesterday and another 3 today I was pleased that all of the players responded well and went straight into the gym to complete their injury prevention, cool down and stretch out fully before they were done for the day. Funnily enough the weather outside was great and the referee moved the remaining matches back onto the clay!
After we had thanked the referee and the other tournament staff we left site and headed back to our hotel to pack and book our train journey home tomorrow. We had dinner tonight in Edinburgh and everyone’s spirits were raised a little with a few games of spoof especially when I was the one who lost and had to do a dynamic warm up in the street in front of the restaurant!
We’ll head home tomorrow and then I’ll be back on the road again on Friday with Mia heading up to Solihull for the U14 TE event at the Arden Club.
