Thursday 29th November 2012
It was another good day at the Mombasa Sports Club today; we ended up with 5 wins out of 5 matches but as Mia and Holly had to play against each other in the doubles one of them unfortunately had to lose.
The tournament organisation out here is generally pretty good and we’re very grateful that the players can have more singles matches in the consolation but yesterday we were told that those matches would be after the doubles. However, when we arrived on site at 9am we were told that the consolation matches could go on anytime and we’d need to be ready. With that we headed straight over to the Mvita Club to warm up and hit for 45 minutes before returning just after 10am.
The players were then expecting to go straight on but in actual fact Holly was the first one to go on at 12.45pm which gave them a chance to get some lunch and relax before they had to play.
Holly’s 1st round match was against Stephanie Mbaya from Kenya who Mia played last year in Burundi. Holly had some specific goals for the match based around her return of serve and her movement forwards on short balls – it is very important to have specific goals especially against weaker opponents as it’s very easy to just go out and win comfortably without actually improving your game. Holly started well and won the 1st set 4-1 but during the second set she lost her way a little and had to fight back from 1-2* down to take the match 4-1, 4-2.
Mason’s match immediately followed Holly’s and he was up against a potentially tricky opponent who is from Botswana and works incredibly hard for every point. Mason had 2 reasons why he was particularly up for this match;
Because he wanted to work on dictating the play more in the rallies and trying to hit through his opponent with more winners / forcing shots etc.
And 2 because this was the player who was in the umpires chair for Mason’s singles match and he gave Mason a few horrible calls!!
Mason started the match very well and flew through the first set 4-0 racking up 9 winners and only 3 unforced errors. It would have been very tough for Mason to keep up that level but he continued to work hard and apply himself really well physically and mentally. Mason won the 2nd set 4-1 with a winner count of 7 and an unforced error count of 9 – if it hadn’t been for a poor returning game at 1-1 where he hit 4 unforced errors it would have almost been a perfect performance!
After a break (and a quick dash back to the hotel as Holly had forgotten her match top!) Holly and Hannah went on to play their doubles ¼ Final against Mia and Nikita. It’s always a difficult one for the coach when two of their players have to play each other but I told both players that they were to go out, play hard and focus on what they needed to do to win – the £1 a pin (or 100 Shillings) rule still applied so they could make a bit of money too!
Holly and Hannah started the better of the two pairs and took a 3-1* lead before Mia and Nikita started to find their games and dictate the play more. Holly was again moving well at the net up but at 3-1* she backed off a little and stopped doing it so much while Mia and Nikita began to move more. Mia and Nikita levelled the set at 3-3 after breaking Holly’s serve and then they won the next 3 games in a row to take the first set 6-3.
The momentum they had gained in winning those 5 games in a row flowed into the 2nd set; they broke Hannah at *1-1 and then again at *2-4 before going on to win the match 6-3, 6-2. It was still a positive match for Holly despite the loss as she finished the match with better stats than any of the others with 14 crosses at the net and 9 1st volley winners.
Mason and Sacha were on straight away after Holly and Mia’s match so I went over to court 8 to watch what turned out to be more of an exhibition rather than a ¼ Final! Mason and Sacha were never in any danger of losing as they raced through the match 6-1, 6-1. Like with all easy wins is very important that they both improved as they played so that they’re ready for a tougher next round match but Mason only managed 3 crosses in the match and 5 1st volley winners while Sacha totalled 3 crosses and 6 1st volley winners – surely Holly didn’t beat the boys?!!
Mason serving during the doubles today
I thought the day was done there but Mia decided she wanted a little more tennis and went on for her consolation ¼ Final against Gizelle Umumararungu from Rwanda. Mia and Gizelle have a bit of history as they played last year in the consolation in Burundi where Mia ended up losing after a bit of a lethargic match!! Today was a different story and Mia was out to gain some revenge – when I turned up after Mason’s doubles match Mia had already won the 1st set 4-0 and continued to stay on top in the 2nd set taking the match 4-0, 4-1.
The girl’s wanted to go straight back to the hotel when Mia was finished but after a long day we needed to cool down and stretch out properly to prevent any injuries occurring so, despite resistance from the girls we headed over to the cricket pitch and went through their cool down and stretching sessions.
We joined the Euroelite team and Nick and Ed from the Berkhamstead Academy in England for dinner tonight at the Royal Court hotel. The meal was great but the best part of the night had to be Dave’s dance on winning 5,000 shillings on one spin of the Roulette wheel in the Casino – he walked in, put the 5,000 shillings down on red, danced when it came in and then walked straight out the door – priceless!!
Schedule for tomorrow:
(1) Courtney Lock (ZIM) & Ismael Mzai (KEN) vs (5) Sacha Modica (GBR) & Mason Recci (GBR) – 2nd match after 9am
Alena Mashtakova (RUS) & Oleksandra Shkorupeyeva (UKR) vs (2) Nikita Dawda (KEN) & Mia Smith (GBR) – 3rd match after 9m
Consolation matches to be confirmed in the morning
