Friday 18th May 2012
We had planned on today being Dave’s final day of preparation ahead of the start of the qualifying tomorrow but a Bye in the first round has meant that he will now play his first match on Sunday.
We’ve had two very good training days on Wednesday and Thursday this week so we’d decided to taper down today with just one on court session and some speed training to make sure that Dave was fully recovered and very sharp for his 1st round match. We had a later than normal start today as we had to pack up all of our bag to move to the official hotel next door to the club so we warmed up at 10am and then went through 30 minutes of speed training from 10.30am until 11am. At this stage the temperatures on court had already hit 29 degrees and it was looking like it was going to be another very hot day.
At 11am we went on court with Can Altiner from Turkey and the plan for the session was to warm up for 15 / 20 minutes and then go straight into playing one set to recreate the conditions for tomorrow. As both players were fresh from the start the quality of the tennis was very good but it was Dave who was playing more aggressive and more consistent and he went on to take the set 6-2. We were both very happy with the level especially Dave’s serve and weight of shot from the back of the court which we have worked hard on all week. All in all it was a superb way to end our preparation for this week’s event and we were very much looking forward to him competing tomorrow.
After the session Dave cooled down and then we had some lunch at the club before moving our bags over to the hotel to check in and relax for the afternoon.
At 7pm we had dinner in the hotel and then we went back over to the club to check out the draw. We were a little disappointed that Dave didn’t have a match tomorrow but it does mean that we can have another day of making sure everything is as it should be before he takes on the qualifying 3rd seed on Sunday.
We then had a few quick games of Pool in which I managed to take the 2nd set 6-2 to level the match before we headed back to the hotel for an early night.
