Thursday 24th May 2012
With just two days to go until the second men’s $10k event here in Mersin we started to taper down the volume of training while maintaining the match intensity and focus so that we’re 100% prepared for the qualifying on Saturday.
To guarantee a full practice court to play sets on we once again had to be up early before all of the other players arrived which meant breakfast when it opened at 6.30am. Dave then went through his normal physical warm up from 7.30am until 8am when we went on court with Jamie. Like yesterday the intensity of the training was very high from the start and after a 20 minute warm up Dave and Jamie decided to go straight into playing a couple of sets.
Dave started very well and took a 4-1 lead while only making 1 unforced error but the momentum shifted at that stage as Jamie played a good game to break and then he held well to make it *4-3. Dave responded well and held serve but Jamie was now finding a better level and he won the next 2 games in a row to level the set at 5-5. When Dave was 4-1 up the stats read: Unforced Errors: 1 vs 13, Winners: 3 vs 5. By 5-5 they had completely shifted the other way: Unforced Errors: 11 vs 14, Winners: 7 vs 13. Jamie continued his aggressive play while hardly missing to take the next two games and the first set 7-5. The quality of play had been very high and both players had to really work hard to earn every point.
The second set was a little more one-sided as Jamie continued to improve his level while Dave’s dropped off slightly. Dave broke in the first game of the set and then he broke again at 1-3* but Jamie played very well in the other 6 games of the set to take it 6-2. Despite losing both sets Dave continued to improve the areas of his game that we’ve been working hard on all week so by the end of the session at 10am we were both very pleased with how it had gone.
Once again it was straight off the court and into the gym (much to the annoyance of the gym staff who made all of us wear covers on our shoes so we didn’t drop any clay on the floor!). As the volume of Dave’s tennis training tapers down to his match day so does the volume of his strength and conditioning programme and today he was faced with a core programme which lasted around 50 minutes. Even though the volume has decreased it was still a tough session but, as the lower back / abdominals of any tennis player are one of the most important areas of the body to keep injury free, it’s very important that we always maintain its strength and flexibility.
After another good lunch at the club we watched some of the matches before relaxing for the afternoon. Dave had a massage at the hotel to help his recovery and reduce any tightness that has been building up while training on the clay while I caught up on some scheduling for the next few months.
After dinner we had a couple of games of bowling where I managed to finally get the ball turning a little and then we had a set of pool before we returned to the hotel.
Tomorrow is our last day of preparation so we intent to put the finishing touches to a very good training week.
