Tuesday 19th November 2013
It was a tough day for us in Liverpool today as Alex went down against big serving Harry Simpson and then had a very close loss in the first round of the doubles.
After packing up and checking out of our Travelodge we arrived at the tennis centre at 7.30am this morning to go through our physical warm-up before we got on our practice court at 8am. Normally at ITF events the practice time is 30 minutes but as this event is indoors, and only has 5 available courts, the tournament has to reduce it to 20 minutes. We still had a good practice session and by the time we finished Alex was all set for his first round match.
In the time before Alex went on court, we talked through his tactics and made sure that he was clear on his goals and then at 9am it was game time!
We had watched Harry in his final qualifying match on Sunday but the level he produced in the first set was much higher than we had expected. Alex started the match a little defensively whereas Harry flew out of the blocks and took control from the very first game. After holding serve, Harry broke Alex and then held serve again with some huge swinging serves and big groundstrokes to take a 3-0 lead. Alex wasn’t doing much wrong apart from not taking some chances that he had and the set was mainly down to the level that Harry produced – which was just too good! Harry took the first set 6-0 in about 20 minutes and his stats read 12 winners and 3 unforced errors – not bad!!
At the start of the second set Alex increased his intensity and broke Harry for the first time but unfortunately he couldn’t hold onto his serve. Then at 1-1* Harry took advantage of some cheap points from Alex and went on to take a 4-1* lead. At this stage things looked very bleak for Alex but he kept fighting and produced some of his best tennis over the next 4 games but he just couldn’t string enough quality points together to get a break back. In the end, after holding twice in the second set, Alex went down 6-0, 6-3. He was obviously disappointed with the result as he had chances in the second set but a lot of credit has to go to Harry who hit 28 winners in the 15 games played.
After a long break where we got some lunch and went through the details of the match, Alex and Polish partner Maksymilian Raupuk went on court at 3.45pm for their first round match with Jonathan Gray and Jack MacFarlane.
The first set was an extremely close affair; there were a total of 3 breaks and Alex was the only player on the court who held serve throughout. Alex was also returning well (didn’t miss a 1st serve return in the whole set) and moving well at the net but despite taking a *5-3 lead our boys couldn’t close it out. In the end the set went to a tie-break and after going 6-4 down it was looking like Alex and Maks were in a bit of trouble. However, they played some of their best tennis to win the next 4 points in a row and take the set 7-6(6).
The second set was also very close and in total there were 6 sudden death deuce games of which Alex and Maks only managed to win 2 of them. After going 4-1* down Alex and Maks fought back to level the set at 4-4* and then had two break points but failed to convert on either of them. It was looking like another tie-break was on the cards but at *5-6, with Alex serving, there was another sudden death deuce point and a poor decision to go line off a tough ball cost our boys the set.
Going into the match tie-break I would have said that Alex and Maks were the favourites to take the match but Jonathan and Jack really upped their games at the start of the set and raced to a 5-0 lead. Alex then held his two service points but Jonathan and Jack responded by winning 5 out of the next 6 points to take the match tie-break 10-3.
Out of the two matches the doubles was definitely the hardest loss to take as Alex and Maks were definitely capable of winning the match but as always there are lots of positives to take from both matches.
After cooling down and stretching out Alex and I got back on the road for a long drive back to Kent.
2013 has been a good year of international events for the ITC team; we had our first ITF singles and doubles champions and saw numerous players increase their ITF rankings. Holly Hutchinson deserves a particular mention as in the last 12 months she has gone from playing her first ever event (Mombasa 2012) with no ranking to now being ranked 362 in the world – keep up the hard work Holly and good luck for 2014!
The first event of 2014 will be to Czech Republic for the Grade 4 U18 ITF, for more information please click here – www.itc-tennis.com/tournament-information/trip-factsheets
