Tuesday 8th February 2011
The crows were flying low over head all day today and they were lucky to escape without getting hit by a couple of flying rackets (not in anger either!!)
We started the day with our standard eggs, bread, banana and random juice drink for breakfast before heading over to the courts to warm up and hit from 8.30 – 9.00am. Within a few minutes of hitting the first racket was flying . . . straight out of Beth’s sweaty hand from the Ad side past Farah, who was hitting with me, onto the next court! All good though and no broken frame. 15 minutes later Beth was warming up her smashes when it went again . . . BOOM! Straight into the floor and this time there was no recovery:
Cracked in 2 places . . . ouch!
Beth managed to complete the warm up without going through anymore frames and it wasn’t long before Farah was on for her singles.
The more experience players get the more they realise that at U18 ITF level the ranking of a player is only really a measure of how good they are once a player is inside the top 50. Outside of that anyone is beatable and today was a great example of that. Farah’s opponent was ranked 299 and Farah was easily capable of taking a win today but a slow start to the match and a poor 3 games in the third really cost her the match. After losing the first set 6-0 she came back with smart consistent tennis to take the second 6-3. She then played well to come back from 3-0 down to 3-2 before she finally lost the match 6-0, 3-6, 6-2. Interestingly the player ranked almost 1400 places higher in the rankings only hit 2 winners in the third set – play the player not the ranking.
Felix was next up and has been struggling with an illness that he’s had for a few days now, so much so that he decided to miss the pre-match warm up to try and conserve all of his energy for the match. He did a good job today, despite feeling bad, he fought hard and played some good tennis but Isaac Stoute (a fellow Kent boy!) played well throughout making sure that Felix was going to have to work very hard for every point. Felix came back in the second and had points to level the set at 4-5 but went down 6-2, 6-4.
In the doubles Beth and Devan used their “get out of jail free card” as they were a set down, 2-1 up when India Sanders had to retire due to difficulty breathing. She had the same issue in her singles match yesterday, it’s unfortunate and I hate to see another Brit having to pull out but Beth and Devan live to fight another battle!
4th seeds Farah and Michelle cruised through their doubs 6-3, 6-0 but had an interesting moment at 6-3, 5-0 when a parent of another player decided to go up to Farah at the change of ends and try and arrange a practise match with her daughter for tomorrow – some people have no idea!!
Felix was last on court for his doubles with Rishi Shah and again despite feeling unwell he was one of the strongest players on the court but went down 6-3, 7-5 – I’ve never seen so many breaks of serve or returns down the line in a boys doubles match in my life (not from Felix I might add!!).
We trained again until 6.30pm and I’ve been very impressed with how much the four players have wanted to do at the end of each day. I love getting the players back on court so they can work on things from their matches when it’s fresh in their minds and these four have always jumped at the chance of more training. Many other players are looking for an early end to the day but it’s the ones that stay out there, work on things and go through their stretching and pre-hab that are going to be the best they can be.
Dinner was great this evening, lots of banter amongst the team after a tough day, Felix showed us some of his moves which Justin Timberlake and Michael Jackson would have been proud of and we all had a little sing song to some classic cheese, well . . . maybe I was on my own there!!
Schedule for tomorrow:
Devan McCluskey (USA) vs (8) Beth Askew (GBR) – 1st on at 9am
(1) Pia Cuk (SLO) & Yasmin Ebada vs Devan McCluskey (USA) & Beth Askew (GBR) – 3rd on after 9am
Kasandra Kozub (POL) & Anastasiya Shestakova (UKR) Vs (4) Farah Abdel-Aziz (GBR) & Michelle Onyancha (KEN) – 3rd on after 9am
