Wednesday 24th August 2011
It was a big day today as Mia looked to follow Cameron’s example by taking down a seed and make it to the ¼ finals.
We warmed up as normal at 8.30am in the gym and then while Mia warmed up on court with Emily Smith Cameron got a basket of balls and worked on his serve on his own. Mia had a great pre-match hit and after completing her match sheet we spoke about her goals and game plan before she went on court at 10am.
The first set was a bit of a rollercoaster; it started with Mia getting broken but then breaking straight back, then the next 4 games went with serve, the next 4 went against serve and it ended up going to a tie-break after the girls held their last two games service games. With in those 12 games the level of tennis wasn’t great; both girls were making far too many unforced errors and not taking the chances they had. In the tie-break Nika was the more solid of the two players but only had to win 1 point as Mia gave her the other 7 to lose it 8-6. In total Mia hit 39 unforced errors to Nika’s 27 and hit 18 winners to Nika’s 5 – not ideal!!
Mia responded well at the start of the second set breaking serve but then mentally completely lost her way losing the next 4 games which were all down to her missing. She soon found herself 5-2 down which is when something clicked in her head and she started to make Nika work more for the point and test her more in each rally. Mia got it back to 5-5 and then after each of the girls held we were back to another tie-break! Unfortunately the second set tie-break was almost identical to the first set with Mia giving Nika 6 of the 7 points she needed to take the match 7-6(6), 7-6(5).
It’s a match that I’m sure Mia will want to forget quickly as the stats don’t make good reading:
• Unforced Errors: 86 to 65
• Winners: 32 to 13
• Mia’s game point conversion: 41%
After lunch I went on court with Cameron to prepare him for tomorrow, we warmed up and played a set out (in which I just about managed to sneak the win!) and ended the session with some specific drilling based on the notes we made about his next round opponent. While Cameron was drilling with me Mia got back on court and worked on her serve for 40 minutes before joining us to end the session for some basket drills. She then went into the gym to complete her strength and conditioning programme while Cameron stretched out and showered.
Tough day today for Mia but I do like to see a player respond well and take it upon themselves to get back on court and back in the gym to make themselves better which she did.
Dinner tonight was Cameron’s choice (and definitely not mine!!) so we drove the 10 mile journey to High Wycombe in search of the closest Nando’s! I’m really not sure what the attraction is but soo many of the senior and junior players seem to love it. If it makes him happy and means he’ll perform better then I’m up for it!!
Schedule for tomorrow:
Cameron Hawkins (GBR) (UNR) vs (2) Daniel Little (GBR) (151) – 2nd round after 10am
