Tuesday 19th April 2011
Three good sessions banked today and an early start gave us some time this afternoon to learn a little more about Mostar as we explored the town.
The club here in Mostar is really nice but as it only has 4 outdoor clay courts the matches start at 8.30am which means if you want to train you either have to get up early or use the two indoor clay courts. We went for the early option to give us a chance to hit for an hour on the match courts so our day started with a quick bite to eat at 6.30am, warm up at 7.10am and then training 7.30am – 8.30am with fellow Brit Samm Butler. As it was Dave’s first time hitting at the club we spent the whole hour getting a feel for the balls and the courts and just did a lot of drilling from the back of the court. Once the matches started we moved onto the hard court to hit some serves for half an hour which completed a very productive morning. We then went back to the hotel to eat a proper breakfast!
Mostar Tennis Club
We then had around an hour to relax before we made our way back to the club for our second session of the day between 11am – 12pm. As we had drilled so much this morning we planned for this session to just be point based and it gave Dave a chance to work more on his serve and return as well as working on building the points and staying patient. The session went well and we covered all the areas we wanted to so by 12pm Dave felt good to go.
After Lunch we did some fitness on court including a bit of basketball and worked on some movement exercises before taking on the Polish team at a bit of tennis football. Needless to say we won but some points did get very tight! We then hit some more serves and returns before finishing for the day at around 2.30pm.
As we had sometime before sign-in we decided to explore the town and learn a little more about the history. It’s an amazing place that was horrendously bombed by first the Serbs in 1992 and then the Croatians between 1993 and 1995. During the war the whole town was pretty much destroyed including the jewel of Mostar; The Old Bridge.
The Old Bridge
The Old Bridge was originally built in 1566 and immediately became a landmark for the town but it was damaged in 1992 and then completely destroyed in November 1993. In 1997 the reconstruction started, the bridge was formally opened in 2004 and on the 17th July 2005 the bridge and the town was added to the UNESCO World Heritage list.
Also a diving platform - they must be mad!!
Today we saw some pictures of what the town looked like during the war and it’s amazing to see how it looks now – it’s truly an amazing place but everywhere you look there are many reminders of what had happened back in the 90’s.
Reminders of the past
We made our way back to the club to sign-in, have dinner with the other British players and wait for the draw to be done. After helping the referee sort out the errors he had made with the girls draw we booked practise courts and came back to the hotel to get prepared for tomorrow.
Schedule for tomorrow:
(5) Dave Hodgetts (GBR) (568) vs Zvonimir Podvinski (CRO) (770) – 1st on at 8.30am
