Montenegro U18 ITF Grade 5, Day 5

Wednesday 28^th May 2014

This is going to be a shorter Blog than normal as it’s now 11.15pm and we’ve just got back to the hotel after being at the club for almost 14 hours today.

We arrived at the club just after 7.15am this morning and, as we had no priority on the court (because they were only reserved for 1^st and 2^nd round matches), it was a case of jumping on one as soon as it became available. The girls warmed up and then managed to have a good 30 minute hit from 8-8.30am before the 1^st round matches started.

The rest of the morning was spent trying to find a doubles partner for Camille and then at 12pm the draw came out:

We then got lunch at the restaurant next door and then the early part of the afternoon was spent watching fellow Brits Mohamed Abdel-Aziz and Lauryn John-Baptiste come through their 1^st round matches. A big well done has to go to Mohamed who had a very difficult but rewarding win over the 7^th seed from Israel who tried every trick in the book to get under Mohamed’s skin.

Camille then went on at 4.30pm to face Jasmin Buchta from Austria and she produced a very high level of tennis from the start of the match. Over the last few days her training has been going well but there have often been fluctuations in her concentration but today she was spot on from start to finish. Camille broke serve for the first time at 2-2* and then after taking the first set 6-3 she upped her level to win the next 6 games in a row to take the match 6-3, 6-0. It was a convincing win and we were both pleased with her performance.

Holly then went on court at 5.30pm to play Milica Cubranovic from Serbia and from the warm up it was obvious that it was going to be difficult as her game did not match up well with her opponent’s. Milica changed the pace a lot and didn’t allow Holly to get into any rhythm which saw her take a 6-2, 4-1 lead. Holly wasn’t about to give up though and she dug really deep to win the next 3 games in a row to level the set at 4-4. Despite being broken at 4-4 and 5-5, Holly broke straight back each time and when the set went to a tie-break I really thought Holly would take it. Unfortunately Holly didn’t play well until she was 1-6 down and even though she got it back to 5-6 a double fault cost her the match 6-2, 7-6(5).

The next match of the day was Camille’s doubles with Itana Pejovic from Montenegro against Ivon Mihaleva (BUL) and Beata Swiatlon (POL). The girls went on at 7.30pm and I have to say it was one of the worst doubles matches I’ve seen in a long time! Luckily Camille and Itana pulled through the match 6-2, 2-6, 12-10 (after saving a match point at 9-10 down) which meant that even though the debrief wasn’t too positive, they live to fight another day and can work on all the things we talked about tomorrow in the next round!

Our final match of the day was Holly and Lauryn against Lisa and Jana Friess from Austria which went on at 9.20pm! I was really proud of Holly this evening as, after she was so disappointed with her singles performance earlier, she came onto the doubles court and played the best doubles match I’ve ever seen her play. The Austrian sisters were a good pair but Holly and Lauryn played a very high quality match and came through 6-2, 6-4 – it did get a bit tight in the 2^nd set though as Holly and Lauryn lost 3 sudden death deuce games in a row from 6-2, 5-1 up but they remained positive and broke serve to take the match!

After the match Holly had some food that Camille managed to get from the restaurant next door and then we had to wait 20 minutes for a taxi that in the end didn’t turn up at all! Thankfully the coach of Camille’s doubles partner gave us a lift back to the hotel at 11pm and now it’s time to get ready to go again tomorrow morning at 7am!!

Schedule for tomorrow:

(4) Patrycja Polanska (POL) (510) vs Camille Verden-Anderson (GBR) (1246) – 2^nd match after 9am

Holly Horsfall (GBR) & Lauryn John-Baptiste (GBR) vs Itana Pejovic (MNE) & Camille Verden-Anderson (GBR) – After Rest