Guadeloupe U18 ITF Grade 4, Day 2

Tuesday 9^th April 2013

It was a tough 1^st round singles match for Alex today which brought his event to a close while the girl’s still haven’t played a singles or doubles match!

We had a very early start today with breakfast at 6.45am before we got the 7.45am bus to the courts. The girl’s training session was scheduled for 10am-12pm so when they arrived on site they got straight into their school work while Alex went through his physical warm up. Alex then hit with Max Renke to prepare himself for his singles match and by 9am he was feeling good and ready to go!

After the session Alex completed his pre-match sheet with his game plan and specific goals while I took the girls across the road to the supermarket to stock up on water. When we returned Alex and I went through his pre-match briefing before waiting for the match before his to finish.

Alex took to the court at 10.15am to play French wildcard Constant De La Bassetiere. Alex played well in the first two games to take a 2-0 lead but he then put in a poor service game and was broken to allow Constant back into the set. Alex was broken again at *2-2 as Constant started to find his rhythm but Alex responded very well to break straight back. Many of the games were very close with both players finding a good aggressive balance but Constant stepped up his level at *3-3 to break and hold to take a 5-3 lead. Alex’s head had dropped a little but he dug his heels in and worked very hard to hold serve to make his opponent serve the set out. The next game was extremely close and it was by far the best game of the set but after three deuces Constant hit two big unreturnable serves to take the set 6-4. The set had taken almost an hour and 15 minutes and it definitely had a big physical effect on Alex.

The second set was much more one sided as Constant upped his level again and Alex struggled to find the same level as the first set. Alex went 0-3* down before getting one of the two breaks back but he couldn’t hold onto it and was broken again in the next game. Alex continued to work as hard as he could but a slight pull to his right quad meant that he struggled to stay in the rallies like he had in the first set.

He held serve at *1-5 but Constant served well to take the match 6-4, 6-2. The first set was definitely the best I’ve seen Alex hit the ball and now it’s going to be his goal to become physically strong enough to be able to maintain that level for 3 sets.

After the match I had a quick chat with Alex to reinforce all the positive points from both sets before I went straight over to the practice courts to be with Mia and Georgie. They had both trained hard for an hour and a half and when I arrived they were just coming to the end of their first match tie-break. They played one more up tie-break up to 15 points and at the end of it they were both happy with their level so decided to finish the session and get some lunch.

I was back on court with Georgie at 2pm for her second session of the day and the goal of this session was to help her feel the ball a little more and find the level she wants for the match tomorrow. Georgie hit the ball really well throughout the session and look very confident from the back of the court. I managed to sneak the match tie-break that we played at the end but I think that was only because I had the wind behind me after we changed ends at 9-9!!

Following the session we got the bus back to the hotel which gave the players a couple of hours to do school work and have a swim in the hotel pool before we went out to dinner. Tonight we went to a local African restaurant near the hotel where the food was very good.

After dinner we headed back to the hotel to go through a psychology session for 30 minutes and then the players relaxed while watching the second half of The Goonies!

Schedule for tomorrow:

(1) Georgie Axon (GBR) (612) vs Morgan Bernabe (MRN) (UNR) – 1^st match at 9am

Arki Truscott (AUS) (1872) vs (3) Mia Smith (GBR) (764) – 2^nd match after 9am

(1) Georgie Axon (GBR) & Mia Smith (GBR) vs Madison Harrison (USA) & Arki Truscott (AUS) – 2^nd match after 4pm