Tuesday 19th October 2021
Having secured his very first Tennis Europe Junior Tour win yesterday in the doubles, Matthew continued his fine form today as he flew through his first round of the singles!
Having spent 12 and a half hours on-site yesterday we could have really done with a lie-in this morning but it wasn’t to be so we were up and out of the hotel by 7:15am. It was another physical warm-up in the dark on court 6 for us and even when we started to hit the sun still hadn’t quite come up! Matthew had a good warmup with Ollie Page again while Isla trained next to them with Mila Bastianelli from France.
By 8:20am the orders came from the ground staff that we were to sweep and line the courts ready for the first round of matches at 8:30am which was exactly when Matthew took to the court to face Alejandro Padilla Perez from Spain.
Matthew was a little nervous this morning but, having seen him train here for the last week, and being on the receiving end of a 6-4 loss in a set, I knew that he definitely had no reason to be nervous at all. He started the match very well and dictated play from the very first point which resulted in him holding serve, breaking his opponent and then holding again to take a 3-0 lead. From this point there was no stopping Matthew and he stormed through the first set 6-0 clocking up some strong stats; 71% first serves in, 9 winners and only 6 unforced errors.
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The second set was even more convincing and this was when he started to play his best tennis. Alejandro was a solid clay court player but Matthew’s groundstrokes were heavy, deep and finding the corners of the court in almost every rally. After just under an hour of play Matthew took the win 6-0, 6-0 and was comfortably through to round 2!
We stayed by the side of court 4 for the next hour or so to watch his next round opponent and it happens to be the person Matthew has trained with the most over the past 3 or 4 days; Zangar Nurlanuly from Kazakhstan!
At 10:45am I took to the practice court with Isla and we had a really good hour of training on the hard courts. The experiences Isla is having out here are so beneficial for her game development and it’s also making her very aware of where she wants her game to be at when she is 11 and 12 years old.
Once we had finished we got some lunch and then headed back to the hotel in the afternoon to get some rest and recover ready for the matches tomorrow.
During that time Matthew and Isla went off to the gym to go through a 45 minute pre-hab programme and then stretch out while I cut and edited Matthew’s match video so I could send it over to him without all the breaks in play. This meant that a 55 minute match video which, for some players can be much too long to watch, is now only 13 minutes long and much easier to digest!
For dinner tonight we headed back to Mr Kale for another superb Asian meal and then it was back to the hotel ready for another early morning tomorrow!
Schedule for tomorrow:
Matthew Wilkes (SGP) (UNR) vs (4) Zangar Nurlanuly (KAZ) (82) – 2nd match on after 8:30am (not before. 9:30am)
(1) Jamie Mackenzie (NZL) & Flynn Thomas (CHE) vs Oliver Page (GBR) & Matthew Wilkes (SGP) – After rest, not before 5:30pm
