Sunday 27th January 2013
It was a very positive day for the whole team today as Holly got a win, Alex squeezed his way into the doubles and Anais had another very good day of practice before she opens her campaign tomorrow.
The day started very early for Alex and I as we needed to get to breakfast at 7am so that we could get over to the courts to warm up and be ready to hit on court at 8am in case Alex managed to get into the main draw as a Lucky Loser. Alex was originally 11th Lucky Loser but we thought we’d still give it a go as he was going to be onsite for the whole day anyway. In the end only 3 boys signed in for a Lucky Loser spot but unfortunately no-one pulled out – there’s always tomorrow though as the seeds got byes today.
I came back to the hotel just after 9.30am to meet up with the girls who had just finished breakfast and then we made our way back over to the club to watch some of the main draw matches. At 10.45am the girls went through their physical warm ups at the club before we walked the short journey to the Public Service Club to the extra practice courts so that Holly could go through her pre-match hit. The session was going really well until I got a surprise call from Alex at 11.45am saying that Holly’s doubles partner had signed in with another girl and we should come back straight away as we’ve only got 15 minutes to find another partner. Holly was quite rightly very annoyed but after speaking to her original partner she managed to find another girl before the sign in deadline of 12pm.
Holly and Anais warming up before Holly’s 1st round match
After having lunch together the team then went about their own individual work; Alex had two on court session where he warmed up a couple of the players before their matches, Anais spent some time watching the matches before going on court herself while Holly and I went through her pre-match preparations.
At just after 2pm Holly went on to play Maheen Dada from Pakistan who we didn’t know too much about apart from what I’d seen this morning when I watched her hit briefly. After the first couple of games it was obvious that Holly was a much stronger player than Maheen but the most impressive thing was that Holly worked really hard on playing patient, disciplined and smart tennis in every game throughout the match. Holly ended up winning 6-0, 6-0 but the match wasn’t without incident as, at the change of ends at 3-0 in the 2nd set a ball was mishit from the next court, went about 50 feet in the air and landed right on the back of Maheen’s neck! She was in quite a bit of pain following the impact and had to get the physio on to loosen up her neck before she could continue playing.
After the match both Holly and I were really pleased with the way she’d played but she felt as though she needed to do a little work on her serve so I went straight onto the court and spent 15-20 minutes going through a few specifics. When she was happy with her serving level she went off to cool down and stretch out while Anais came onto the court to spend a little time sharpening up on a few areas before she plays tomorrow. Anais and Alex had been playing a practice set while Holly was on court and all Anais now wanted to do was just spend 10-15 minutes playing on the match courts to find a better rhythm. When we finished she was hitting the ball really well and feeling confident ahead of her match.
At around 4.30pm everyone in the team met up again to stretch out and then we headed back to the hotel to relax before dinner. There were no forfeits this evening but we did have some fun when Alex joined in with the local singer which set the whole table off in a fit of laughter.
Schedule for tomorrow:
Emmanuelle De Beer (MRI) (1210) vs (2) Anais Nussaume (THA) (458) – 4th match after 9am
(8) Sasha Alexander (AUS) (1127) vs Holly Hutchinson (GBR) (1607) – 4th match after 9am
(WC) Alex Hagon (GBR) & Oliver Havugimana (RWA) vs Ernest Habiyambere (RWA) & Emanuel Mallya (TAN) – 4th match after 9am
