Friday 25th January 2013
It was a good training day today as Alex put the final touches to his preparations before qualifying starts tomorrow and the girls also put in a good full days training as they look to be ready for main draw starting on Sunday.
After a long day yesterday we all had a bit of a lie in and met for breakfast at 8am this morning. Everyone had slept pretty well and were looking up for a good training day so at 9.30am we walked over to the courts to go through our physical warm ups before getting on court just before 10am. The courts were very busy and as there wasn’t a booking procedure in place the team had to split up with the girls taking half of court 1 while Alex hit with fellow Brit Joel Jones on court 4. As Alex is starting in qualifying tomorrow his training was the priority today so I spent most of the morning session with him while keeping an eye on what the girls were doing from a distance! All three players looked much more comfortable this morning and by just after 11am everyone was happy with the level of hitting that they had achieved so we met back up to cool down and stretch out.
Once we were all done we headed back to the clubhouse to get some lunch and then watched some of the fantastic Murray vs Federer match from the Australian Open. Soon enough though it was 2.30pm and time to get back over to the courts for our afternoon session where we’d arranged to play some practice sets. Alex was to take on Ricky Hendler who is from Belgium but based out in Florida with his sister, Tammy, who I know quite well while the girls were going to play a set together. We luckily managed to get two full courts which would have been perfect but Holly’s wrist was getting a little sore after trying to hit more topspin than she’s ever had to hit before (!) so after 30 minutes she stopped and Anais carried on the session with her doubles partner; Alena Mastakova from Russia.
Alex and Ricky had a good set; both of them served well but struggled with their returning games on the bouncy courts but it was ideal preparation for their first round matches tomorrow. Alex took a 5-3 lead but then Ricky played some smart tennis to come back and take the next 4 games to win the set 7-5; overall it was a good set with a lot of positives to take forwards to tomorrow.
Alex serving against Ricky Hendler in their practice set
After the boys were finished Anais and Australian Arki Truscott, who is travelling with Ricky, started to play a set but after 6 games they lost the court so had to stop. By this time it was just after 4.30pm and everyone had put in a great days training so we headed over to the grass area by the side of the court to cool down and stretch out alongside Jay Clarke and his sister Yazmin who have also travelled out from England.
Jay and Yaz joined us for dinner tonight at the Fairview Hotel and witnessed one of the best Chase the Ace forfeits that I think we’ve ever come up with – doing the Gangnam Style dance to the live piano music in the restaurant! Like in Austria when it came to the worst forfeit I somehow managed to end up in the final two (I’m sure these guys are hooking me!) but luckily I chose right and Holly was left with the Ace! She then had the whole meal to sweat about doing it but to her credit she got up and did something that more resembled disco dancing from the ‘70s rather than the Gangnam Style dance – I think I’ll be keeping that video saved in case I ever need to bribe her!!
The Boy’s Qualifying Draw
Schedule for tomorrow:
(WC) Kevin Cheruiyot Langat (KEN) (UNR) vs Alex Hagon (GBR) (UNR) – 1st match at 10am
Winner to play Davide Alberoni (ITA) (UNR) – 2nd match, not before 2pm
