Mombasa U18 ITF Grade 5 (week 1), Day 2

Saturday 24th November 2012

It was another good day of training today as we put the final touches to Holly’s preparations while Mason and Mia continued to get themselves ready for main draw on Monday.

We should have all been up for breakfast at 8am but Holly and Mia ended up having a little more sleep than they expected as their alarm wasn’t set properly! After breakfast we headed over to the club at 9am and by that time it was already very hot and humid. We warmed up for around 25 minutes and then were on court from 9.30am until 11am where we again spent time getting used to the high bounce of the court but also spent time focusing on the specific areas of each of the player’s games to prepare themselves for their matches. There wasn’t much shade around the court this morning and despite the intense heat all of the players did well to maintain a good level of focus and work rate.

After the session we watched some of the boy’s and girl’s singles finals from last week before heading back to the hotel to shower, change and then get some lunch.

As we draw closer to the day of the player’s first match I always believe it’s important for the player’s themselves to determine how much they train as well as the specifics that they focus on to make sure they feel 100% ready before they step on the match court. With that in mind I spent the afternoon session on court with Holly while Mason and Mia trained on the court next to us. Holly decided that she wanted to train on the court in the sun to get more used to the conditions and her focus this afternoon was on the consistency of her groundstrokes, especially on the shots after the first 3/4, as well as her footwork to make sure she’s not getting too close to the ball. She did this very well and it was great to see a high level of intensity in the tough conditions. Our session lasted about an hour and ended with some service points so she felt comfortable and ready for qualifying tomorrow.

Once we were finished I moved over to the court that Mason and Mia were training on and spent the last 15-20 minutes of their session working with them. It was good to see them both working hard whether I was on the court or not and despite getting quite tired towards the end of the session they both managed to stay focused on their own goals.

From the court it was straight over to referee’s tent for Holly to sign in before we all went over to the cricket pitch for a cool down jog and then a good stretch out to complete our day.

Once we got back to the hotel the players then had a couple of hours to relax before we headed out for dinner with Dave’s team at the Royal Court Hotel. The draw came out while we were at dinner and then when we were finished we walked back to the club to book practice for tomorrow morning.

After that there was just enough time for the guys to chill out at the hotel and play some cards before having an early night.

Schedule for tomorrow:

Shanna Krimatschow (GER) (UNR) vs Holly Hutchinson (GBR) (UNR) – 2nd match after 10am