Montenegro U18 ITF Grade 5, Final’s Day!

Saturday 31^st May 2014

It was a fantastic end to a great week here in Podgorica as Holly and Lauryn won the doubles title which we were defending from last year when Holly Hutchinson and Georgie Axon won it.

We had an early start this morning as we had to make sure everything was packed up and ready to check out by the time our taxi came at 7.15am. I had asked on numerous occasions yesterday for a large taxi to the club as we had quite a lot of baggage but for some reason they decided to bring a small one – much to Holly and Camille’s delight:

We arrived at the club at 7.30am and went straight on court to warm up. Lauryn joined us shortly afterwards and then at 8am we went into our training session to prepare the girls for their doubles final. Just like yesterday, Camille and I hit with the girls to warm them up and then we went into some cross-court drills with the main focus moving forwards and controlling the net. That was something that Holly and Lauryn did very well yesterday and I knew that they would need to do the same today if they were to take the title. At just before 9am we warmed up some serves and then went into some points so ensure the girls were planning points both on serve and return.

After the session we got some food and then waited for Oana Gavrila to finish her singles so that we knew what time the doubles final would go on. To keep themselves busy Holly and Lauryn decided to have a game of Chess . . . I couldn’t help but hope that their doubles tactics would be better than their Chess tactics!!

At 12pm the girls went on to face Oana Gavrila and Nina Marjanovic and, following their opponents winning the title last week, we knew it was going to be a tough match. Holly and Lauryn started well and from the first game they put their opponent’s serve under a lot of pressure. After losing a very tight sudden death deuce point in the opening game, Lauryn held serve at *0-1 and then they broke Oana’s serve to take a *2-1 lead. From this point both girls relaxed more and started to play some very good doubles which saw them hold and break again to be in control of the set at *4-1. Lauryn was then broken after a bit of a loose game but the girls responded very professionally to break back in the very next game and then they went on to take the set 6-3.

Lauryn was broken again at the start of the second set following a few too many unforced errors from both girls, but from 0-1* down they refocused and won the next 3 games in a row to secure a strong 3-1* lead. Oana and Nina were hanging on though and kept fighting in every game like you would expect of a Romanian and Serbian. The next game went against our girls on another sudden death deuce point but from *3-2 they fought back the nerves to win the next 3 games in a row to take the match and the title, 6-3, 6-2.

It was a great match to watch and I was really pleased for Holly as not only did she take her first ITF title but she also played well all week and deserved the win today. After the match they had the trophy presentation – here are the Champions!

Once Holly had cooled down and showered we went to the restaurant next door to get some lunch and then at 2.30pm we said our goodbyes and got in the taxi to take us to Dubrovnik airport.

The 3 hour drive was absolutely stunning; one thing I can never get over when I’m travelling is the amount of amazing places around the world that are tucked away in the corner of a country and are not well known. I would have never thought of going to Montenegro for a summer holiday but the places we passed this afternoon were beautiful:

We also had a little boat trip thrown in; it was only about 5 minutes but we were all very impressed!

At 5.30pm we arrived at Dubrovnik airport, checked in and then waited for our 8pm flight back to London.

It’s been another fantastic trip to Montenegro and I look forward to coming back next year. My attention now moves to the grass court season which, for me, starts tomorrow morning with a 6am drive to Nottingham for the women’s $75k.