Guadeloupe U18 ITF Grade 4, Day 7

Sunday 14^th April 2013

Final’s Day!! And what better way to finish a fantastic trip than to get a singles winner on the final day!

Even though it was Final’s Day there was no lie-in for the team as we were up and at breakfast by 6.30am. We then got all of our bags packed and ready to go before we check out and waited for the shuttle to take us to the club for the final time. It would have been better if the tournament had sent the mini bus to pick us up but somehow we managed to squeeze four of us plus all of our bags into a saloon car!

When we got to the club we had a few team photos before Georgie and Alex went through their physical warms up.

Georgie hit for around 30 minutes and was striking the ball really well; as I’ve said before the pre-match warm up is very personal and it was my job to just make sure Georgie was comfortable and confident before going into the match. After the warm up Georgie went through the normal routine of completing her pre-match sheet and then discussing the goals and tactics for the match before she went on court at 9am.

The tournament this week has been really well organised and after Georgie had asked me if she’d have ball boys / girls (to which I responded “I wouldn’t have thought so!”) we saw 10+ kids run past us to the court ready to go! Georgie and Jenna Friedel followed them to the court and then it was “Game on!”

Both girls started the final very tentatively even though they must have known exactly what to expect from playing against or watching each other all week. Georgie drew first blood after breaking Jenna’s serve at 1-1* and went on to lead 3-1*. Before the match we knew that Jenna is a hard worker, feisty and that her coach likes to try and get under her opponent’s skin and when she started fighting back Georgie started to get down on herself. At 3-3* I had a few choice words with Georgie through the fence and with that her attitude changed; she became calmer and more focused on what she needed to do which resulted in her taking the next two games to lead 5-3*. Jenna fought back again to break Georgie at *5-4 and after two more games that went with serve, we were into a tie-break. Georgie went 4-1 down at the start but upped her level to win the next 4 points in a row to lead *5-4. The rest of the tie-break was extremely close; Jenna saved two set points at 6-5* and *7-6 before winning three points in a row to take the breaker 9-7.

The set took almost an hour and 15 minutes and both players were looking mentally and physically tired. At *0-40 down in the first game Georgie looked as though she was struggling but she showed a lot of heart to come back and hold serve. The next three games were the key to the whole match; Georgie held at *1-1 with some very aggressive tennis then despite losing the next game she still found a high level of hitting. It was the *2-2 game though that was the real turning point. Georgie produced 3 unforced errors to find herself *15-40 down but then turned the game around and, after hitting 5 winners in total in a game that was 16 points long, she finally held to lead 3-2*. That game had a massive impact on Jenna and Georgie took full advantage to break, hold and break again to take the set 6-2.

Georgie’s aggressive play had been the key to winning the second set; in 13 games of the first set she had hit 14 winners but in only 8 games of the second set she hit the same amount! At the start of the third set I asked her to hit at least 1 winner a game to maintain her aggressive play and at 5-0* up she’d totalled 9 winners and 5 unforced errors. Jenna had been quiet all set but at 5-0* she produced 2 big winners which fired herself and her coach up a little. Georgie then played a poor service game at *5-1 and it was obvious she was just a little nervous! When she changed ends she said to me “Should I be solid or aggressive?” and my response as always was “Be aggressive and win the points yourself”. Georgie did just that and having spent most of the session yesterday evening working on drive volleys and moving forwards to the net, is was brilliant to see her doing it when it mattered the most. Georgie “won” the final game with 2 winners and some very aggressive play to take the match 6-7(7), 6-2, 6-2 in 2 hours 30 minutes.

It was absolutely brilliant to see Georgie win the tournament after 3 tough weeks but the most important thing to me is that the players work hard, compete hard and improve their games, which Georgie has done 100%.

After the match we walked on court to congratulate Georgie and then we had the presentation. Georgie was not impressed when I said before the match that she might have to say a few words of thanks to the referee and tournament officials but luckily for her she wasn’t asked to do a speech!!

As soon as we were finished with taking photos and telling Georgie how amazing she was (!!) she went off to cool down and change before we got some food at Paul’s – Alex had promised Georgie an Éclair if she won the event but can you believe they were sold out by the time we’d got there?!

At 1.30pm we said our thanks and goodbyes and got a shuttle to the airport. Before we checked in we had to do a bit of repacking to do to get Georgie’s trophy in and then there was the matter of finishing the press-ups that the players and I had accumulated during the trip (note to myself – Mia’s still owes me 215 as she refused to do them in the clothes that she was flying in – don’t tell Holly H. who had to do 180 Burpees in her Hollister stuff in Nairobi!!

After leaving Guadeloupe at 4.45pm we arrived in Paris at 6.20am and then made our way across the capital to the Gare Du Nord for our Eurostar train back to Ebbsfleet. Even though we arrived in time to get the 9.13am train, and there were seats available, I was not prepared to pay another €40 each to change the tickets! So we spent the next 4 hours eating and sleeping in a local café!

That brings another brilliant trip to an end, I hope you’ve enjoyed reading the Blogs and if you have any questions on international tournaments or on any events that I would recommend please feel free to contact me.