Mombasa U18 ITF Grade 5 (week 1), Final’s Day

Saturday 1^st December 2012

After a long week in very hot and humid conditions it was Finals Day and a chance for Mia to win her first ITF title but the number 1 seeds in the doubles stood in her way.

Today marked the middle day between the two tournaments so last night I asked the players how much they would like to train today. Every player needs at least 1 rest day per week and all of them had played every day since we arrived last Friday. Mason wanted to do 1 session for an hour and then rest in the afternoon, Holly also wanted to just do 1 hour so that she was fresh for qualifying tomorrow and Mia had no choice as she had the doubles final to play!!

After breakfast at 8am we walked over to the club as normal at 8.50am and then Mia and I immediately warmed up and hit from 9.30 – 10.15am. The main focus of the session was just to go through a pre-match warm up but we did concentrate more on Mia’s volleys and we talked through yesterday’s semi-final again to keep at the front of her mind what she needed to do in the final. While we were training Mason and Jonas trained on the half court next to us for 30 minutes until they lost the court – it was some of the best ball striking I’d seen from Mason and we’ve both got high hopes for him next week.

Straight afterwards Holly had planned to work with me for an hour but she wasn’t feeling too well and made the decision to rest for the day to try and shake it off. We’ve all been feeling a little under the weather for the last couple of days; nothing major just some dodgy stomachs!!

Due to a very long straight sets singles final Mia and Nikita didn’t go on court until 12.45pm to face top seeds Valentina Kulikova (RUS) and Jessica Simpson (RSA). We know Jessica quite well from seeing her play in Nairobi in February; she’s a good singles and doubles player who won the singles and doubles last week and lost in the singles final this week. We’d only seen Valentina play this week but she’s a typical hard working and intense Russian so we knew it was going to be a tough final.

Mia held serve in the opening game and her and Nikita were looking good from the start but at *2-2 Mia was broken at Sudden Death Deuce and from then onwards the top seeds took control. Valentina and Jessica won the next 3 games in a row to take the set 6-2 and then in the 2^nd set they continued to dominate the play and looked very sharp as a pair to again take a 5-2 lead. At this point Mia and Nikita got a bit of a breakthrough as they broke Jessica’s serve for the first time and it seemed as though the top seeds were starting to get a little edgy. Mia the held serve to make it 4-5* and after a double fault from Valentina on the first point of the next game it really did look like there could be a bit of a “choke” on the cards. Mia and Nikita managed to get the game to deuce but Jess was very sharp at the net on the match point when she crossed and finished off a good volley to take the match 6-2, 6-4.

Mia was very disappointed after the match and she felt as though she didn’t play well throughout but, in a similar way to Mason and Sacha’s semi-final yesterday, I think the pair that played the best doubles in terms of movement at the net, sharper volleys and dominating that points came out on top today.

After the match there was the prize giving ceremony where Mia and Nikita collected their runners-up medals:

From the club it was straight back to the hotel to meet up with Dave and the team who had already decided to go to the beach this afternoon. We weren’t sure if we were going to make the 2.30pm meeting time after the singles final went on for so long but we made it with a time to spare for everyone to have a shower before we got on the minibus.

I missed out on going to the beach last year as we had to fly to Nairobi straight after the doubles semi-final but I’m glad I got a chance to go this year. The sea was like stepping into a bath and the sand was pure white. We had been recommended a restaurant called Yuls which was situated right on the beach front and it was perfect for all of the players to relax and unwind after a tough week. Obviously we had the locals trying to sell us everything from Camel rides to Jet ski / Banana Boat trips but I think the real winner amongst the players were the souvenirs to take back home – they all loved a bit of bartering and a few of them had it down to a fine art!

At 5.45pm we left the beach and went to The Tamarind Restaurant which Dave had been to last week with his team. The views over the sea were amazing and the food was first class with not a single plate left unfinished between all the guys.

We were back at the hotel by 8pm to find out that Holly had received a bye through qualifying so tomorrow will just be a training day for everyone with the main draw starting on Monday.