Montenegro U18 ITF Grade 5, Day 6

Thursday 29^th May 2014

Camille’s tournament came to an end today after a tough battle with the 4^th seed, but Holly and Lauryn are through to the semi-final of the doubles after knocking out Camille and Itana this afternoon.

After having an early breakfast we made our way to the club to warm up and get ready for our 8.30am practice court. Holly and Camille hit for around 30 minutes and both girls were hitting the ball well throughout the session. Then at 9am we came off the court and I sat down with each of the girls individually to go through their singles and doubles matches from yesterday. It took around an hour to go through all four matches but both girls gave some very accurate feedback and their post-match sheets made very interesting reading!

Once we were finished going through yesterday’s matches, Camille and I talked through the goals for her match today and then at 11am she went on court to face 4^th seed Patrycja Polanska from Poland.

Camille started a little nervously and after a poor service she went 0-2 down but she then responded well and won the next 5 games in a row to take a 5-2 lead. By this stage Camille was playing very confidently and dictating most of the points from the back of the court while her opponent was getting more and more frustrated! Camille was broken while serving for the set at 5-2 but again responded professionally and broke straight back to take the first set 6-3.

At the end of the set Patrycja went for a toilet break and when she returned she was a completely different player; she was much more aggressive while at the same time making sure that she limited the amount of free points that she gave Camille. That led to her racing through the second set 6-1 in 30 minutes and even though the set seems very one sided, Camille’s winner count was the same as in the first set and her unforced error count was actually 5 better! Unfortunately her opponent had completely switched her stats and, after hitting 3 winners and 20 unforced errors in the first set, Patrycja hit 13 winners and only 10 unforced errors in the second.

Once that set was finished it was obvious that Patrycja was well into her stride and it was going to be very difficult to break the rhythm she had found. Camille continued to work hard and tried to dictate the points like she had done in the first set but her opponent was not going to give up the lead and went on to take the third set 6-0 while posting impressive stats of 8 winners and only 3 unforced errors.

Camille was very disappointed at the end of the match but to be fair to her opponent she did play very well, especially in the third set.

Once Camille had cooled down, showered and stretched we headed to the restaurant next door to get some lunch and relax before the showdown in the doubles between Camille & Itana and Holly & Lauryn!

The girls took to court 1 after a bit of a delay at around 3.45pm and from the first couple of games I knew it was going to be a big ask for Camille and Itana to come through the match with a win. I knew that Camille was more than capable of competing at the level that Holly and Lauryn were playing at, but unfortunately for Itana it was just too difficult. Holly and Lauryn raced through the first set 6-0 and even though Camille and Itana took a 1-0 lead in the second set after breaking Holly, it only lasted 1 game before they were broken back. Holly and Lauryn played some sharp doubles and once they took a 3-2 lead in the second set there was no looking back for them. They finished off the match 6-0, 6-2 to advance to the semi-finals tomorrow where they’ll face the top seeds from Poland.

Once Holly and Camille had cooled down and had a good 20 minute stretching session, we got a taxi back to the hotel. We then met for dinner at 6.30pm and after a few very long games of cards we decided that it would be best to have an early night!

Schedule for tomorrow:

(1) Wiktoria Kulik (POL) & Karolina Silwanowicz (POL) vs (4) Holly Horsfall (GBR) & Lauryn John-Baptiste (GBR) – Time ‘To Be Confirmed’