Sunday 16th November 2014
It was another difficult day for the team at the Liverpool Junior International today as Alex faced an inform George Hutchings from Lancashire.
As Alex was 3rd match on after 9am we met for breakfast at 6.45am and then packed up all our things as we’re moving hotels today. We then got over to the tennis centre for just before 8am so that both boys could have a full warm-up in preparation for their practice session from 8.30-9am.
Even though Alex has been training on clay in Spain for the last couple of months he’s adjusted to the pace of the indoor hard courts well and he found a very good level during the 30 minute pre-match session this morning. By 9am Alex had gone through everything that he needed to and we left the court to make way for the first round of matches of the day.
Before Alex went on for his match we got some food, went through his pre-match tactics and goals and then watched some of the other qualifying matches. While we did that Toby took himself off to the gym and went through his daily strength and conditioning programme. He then returned in time to watch and analyse his opponent from yesterday in his 2nd round match against Matt Summers.
As the 2nd match on Alex’s court was coming to an end we left Toby watching Aidan vs Matt to do some further warm-up and movement work to sharpen Alex up before he went on court for his match at 12pm.
We’d seen George play last week in Loughborough and also in his 1st round match yesterday so we knew that we needed to be aggressive and look to take his time away whenever possible. In the first game Alex pressed a little too hard during the rallies and ended up getting broken but after a 20-point second game, where Alex had numerous game points, he found his range and looked to be clear on exactly how he needed to play to beat George. Unfortunately George took that game and with it his confidence and level of playing increased which led to him taking the 1st set 6-0.
Even though Alex didn’t get a game on the board in the first set it was still very competitive and the set lasted 41 minutes. The second set continued to be close in terms of the score in each game but whenever Alex got into a winning position he either over-pressed and missed or George would step up and play very good tennis to win the point. Alex continued to fight hard throughout the set and managed to hold serve at *0-4 but George was just too good on the day and went on to win the match 6-0, 6-1 in 1 hour and 25 minutes.
Straight after the match Alex and I sat down to debrief and we both came to the same conclusion that tactically Alex had played the match pretty well but he just needed to play the big points a little better.
Once we’d eaten some lunch we went to our new hotel to check in and then returned to the club at 4pm to warm up for our second training session of the day. Due to the main draw players having the priority on the indoors bookings we were relegated to the outdoor courts but that didn’t stop Toby and Alex from working very hard and putting in an excellent hour of training.
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Toby and Alex battling the cold conditions on the outdoor courts this evening
After the session the boys showered and changed at the club and then we headed straight into Liverpool for dinner at ASK. It was then back to the hotel to watch the start of ‘I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here!’ and then get an early night because it’ll be and early start for practice tomorrow.
