Saturday 26th January 2013
It was a difficult day for Alex today in his first round qualifying match while the girls put in a good days training to prepare themselves for their main draw matches tomorrow.
Everyone was up and at breakfast by 7.20am this morning so that they had enough time to let the food digest before our warm up started at 8.30am. When we got to the club the courts weren’t ready for play but as I’ve experienced that for the last couple of years I went to go straight to the groundsman and managed to get a court set up by our scheduled practice time of 9am. Hopefully from now on the tournament have told the groundstaff that we need the courts ready at least an hour before play!
Alex hit with Ricky again and, as they both had qualifying matches today, they went through their pre-match warm up while the girls trained on the other half court. Alex was a little erratic to begin with but soon found his rhythm and was looking good by the time we finished the session. While Alex and I left the court to prepare him for his match the girls stayed on and finished off a really good hour of practice; Anais has been comfortable from the first day but Holly’s game has really developed in the last couple of day and, as she put it, “I’m learning to play tennis again!!”
At 10am Alex went on to face local wildcard Kevin Langat and having played Kevin before in Mombasa back in November Alex knew exactly what to expect. Neither player served well at the start of the match which resulted in five breaks of serve and at 2-3* Alex had chances to break back again but didn’t quite take them which resulted in him going 4-2 down. There had been far too many unforced errors coming from Alex throughout the set but when he was serving at *2-4 he gave away 5 cheap points in the game and then Kevin held serve to take the opening set 6-2. It had not been the start that I’d expected from Alex but I think it was just down to Kevin dealing with the court and the conditions much better from the start.
Alex serving during the 1st set
After a toilet break Alex came back and started to play some really good tennis; he served a lot better, was a lot more aggressive and also went for bigger targets on the court which meant his unforced errors count was reduced. Alex held serve in the opening game which gave him and big boost and then at 2-* he had chances to break but Kevin came out with some big winners on the important points to hold serve. Alex responded well to this and at *3-3 it really looked like Alex had taken control of the match but a sloppy game with 3 unforced errors and 0 winners cost him his serve. At *3-5, *40-15 I felt as though there was still a lot left in this match but it was the unforced errors that again cost Alex as he went on to get broken to lose the match 6-2, 6-3.
It’s always disappointing to lose an opening match of a tournament but the level that Alex found in the second set was much better than in Austria and if he can now get into the consolation draw later in the week he’ll get more practice matches which will prepare him really well for the singles next week. Alex still has the chance to get into the doubles tomorrow and he managed to secure a main draw player so fingers crossed that they get lucky.
Alex and I returned to the hotel after the match and had a quick debrief before we sat down with the rest of the team to get some lunch. My attention then turned to Anais who was straight back on court for some drilling and point play with Yasmine Xantos from Australia. Anais has really adjusted well to the surface (which she puts it down to being French!!), she’s now started to step up more and looks really confident coming forwards which I great to see.
The last session of the day was at 3.30pm when Anais and Holly were due to play a practice set but unfortunately they had to share the court. Luckily though they were sharing the court with fellow Brits Jay Clarke and Alexis Canter so after a good warm up we were able to go into a lot of full court points with them. Anais picked up from where she left off during the previous session and played some very solid tennis while Holly showed that the level she found in the morning session was no fluke as she continued to play some very smart, disciplined but aggressive tennis. The session was the best one I’ve seen from the girls which was just what we needed before their main draw matches.
Once everyone had cooled down and stretched I made my way over to the referee’s desk to check the girls had signed in correctly (good job I did eh Holly?!!) and then we headed back to the hotel to change for dinner.
We had another great dinner at the Fairview hotel which included Anais giving our waitress a hug and Holly going down on one knee to give one of the other waiters a flower! Poor Holly gets all the bad forfeits … I’m sure it’ll be the boy’s turn soon though!
Girl’s Main Draw
Schedule for tomorrow:
Holly Hutchinson (GBR) (1607) vs Maheen Dada (PAK) (UNR) – 4th match after 9am (not before 2pm)
