Tuesday 22nd May 2012
It was another really good day’s training today in Mersin as the main draw started but a strange decision from the referee meant that practice time for everyone was very limited.
When we checked the practice schedule yesterday we noticed that the referee had decided to use courts 1, 3 and 4 for the matches which meant the only court available for practise throughout the day was court 6 (as you can’t practise next to the match courts). The main draw players always have priority for practice and, as there was singles and doubles today, court 6 was fully booked for the whole day which meant we needed to get all of our training in before the matches started. That meant that Dave and I were up early for breakfast at 6.30am and then we were at the club by 7.30am to warm up for an 8am start.
We had scheduled a practice session this morning with Artur Completo who some of you might remember from the Kenyan and Nottingham ITFs last year. Artur is the same age as Dave and last year increased his U18 ITF ranking to 140 – when we first met in Kenya last February he was unranked so he’s done very well in the last 12 months. After a 20 minute warm up we decided to play two sets and make them as much like match play as possible. Dave started a little slowly and Artur made the most of his chances to take a 3-0 lead before Dave fought hard and played some of the best tennis I’ve seen from him to win the next 6 games in a row to take the set 6-3. The standard of tennis was very high throughout the first set so it was then a challenge for Dave to see if he could maintain that level during the second set.
Artur again started well and took a 2-0 lead but Dave was mentally very good and kept working on his game which resulted in him winning the next 3 games in a row to lead 3-2. The set then went with serve until Dave broke at 4-3* and then held to take the second set 6-3. Overall it was 2 of the best sets I’ve seen from Dave; mentally he was very good and tactically he was always switched on not only to what his opponent was doing but also to what areas in his own game he wanted to develop throughout in each game.
After signing in as a Lucky Loser for the singles (always worth a go even though Dave lost early in qualifying) and as an Alternate for the doubles we returned to the hotel and went straight into the gym. Today’s session was ‘circuits’ and the work / rest ratio was 15 seconds on / 15 seconds off which doesn’t give you a lot of time to recover from the previous exercise before you’re going again on the next one.
Dave working hard during the circuit training
After 2 sets of 4 circuits the session was completed and after showering and changing we were back to the club for some well earned lunch.
We spent a lot of the afternoon watching the main draw matches which included fellow Brit Jamie Feaver who lost a tight match to the same guy that beat Dave in qualifying and Sam Barry from Ireland who played a superb first set but eventually went down in three sets to former world number 5 junior Robin Kern.
At 5pm we went back into the gym to go through a 20 minute recovery session on the bike and then Dave did a thorough stretch out to finish the day.
It’s been our standard evening’s entertainment to venture next door to the bowling alley to either play Pool, darts or go bowling and this evening was no different. Despite beating Dave at Pool during the week I’d been struggling at the bowling and tonight was no different as Dave was on fire producing an unbelievable 205 in the first game!
Average!
After that I decided to take on the advice of the pro bowlers who were training on the lanes next to us and they were happy to give both of us a bit of a lesson on how to bowl properly! After about 20 minutes of intense practise I finally managed to get the ball to turn like the pros but I think it’s going to take a bit more practise before I’m scoring 300!
