Nairobi U18 ITF Grade 4, Day 5

Monday 28^th January 2013

It was a day of mixed emotions today as Anais came through a hard fought match with a win while Alex had a tight loss in the doubles and Holly went down in the 2^nd round of singles.

As there were byes in the boy’s singles draw Alex had another chance of sign in as a Lucky Loser but last night he wasn’t sure if it was worth getting up so early to do so especially as he had a doubles match scheduled for later in the day. I left the decision up to him and before we went to bed he decided that he would do it as he still had a very small chance of getting in. That meant we met for breakfast this morning at 7am, warmed up at 7.40am and then were on the court hitting by 8am. We had a really good 30 minutes on court and playing at that time is probably the best time of day as the courts have just been rolled and the temperature is quite cool. Alex then signed in while I walked to the supermarket to get some water for both of us but I didn’t realise that I’d be waiting an hour and 20 minutes for the shop to open! While I was waiting I got a call from Anais asking me to get the girls some water so in the end I walked back to the club with 25 litres!!

At 10am the girls arrived at the courts to warm up before our practice session from 10.30-11am. Both girls were hitting very well; as I said before Anais has been looking very comfortable from day 1 but now she’s starting to step up and be a lot of aggressive and Holly is just going from strength to strength each day as her new found patient game style is looking extremely good. After the session we watched some of Jay’s match with Ricky and then it was a case of sitting and waiting for everyone’s matches to go on while making sure all the players were well fuelled and had gone through their pre-match preparations.

Anais and Alex were both on at just before 2.30pm; Anais was taking on Emmanuelle De Beer from Mauritius on court 1 while Alex was a few courts further away on court 4 with his doubles partner Olivier Havugimana from Rwanda.

After the first couple of games in Anais’ match we knew it was going to be a tough one but I didn’t expect the first 6 games to all go against serve! Anais had started nervously which was expected as she hasn’t competed a lot recently and the other girl had already played a match yesterday  but at *3-3 she held serve and started to settle down. The quality of the set wasn’t quite up the level that Anais has been training at but she fought really hard against a tough player and at *5-5 she held serve well and then managed to break Emmanuelle’s serve on her 8^th set point!! The set had taken an hour and 20 minutes but as I’ve been saying to the guys all week if you’re prepared to work hard and stay in the rally you will get results out here.

The 2^nd set was just as close as the first with most of the games going to deuce but Anais played well at the right times and ended up taking the set 6-0; a flattering scoreline but it wasn’t as easy as it looks! Anais was really pleased with the win, she knows it wasn’t her best performance but she’s now got that elusive 1^st match under her belt so now she can relax more and improve as the week goes on.

Alex and Oliver had finished their match by the time Anais had just started her 2^nd set and unfortunately they went down 7-6(3), 6-2. Alex was frustrated at the end of the match as he felt as though it was definitely a match they could have won but he was pleased with the way that he played and the fact that he achieved his doubles goals more than he did in Austria. It’s another match at this level for Alex and with each match he gains more experience which is only going to help him develop more as a player. He now has the consolation starting tomorrow which will prepare him perfectly for the qualifying of the second event on Saturday.

We weren’t sure if Holly’s match was actually going to go on as some matches were talking a long time to complete but in the end her match was moved onto court 1 after Anais had finished and so at 4.45pm she went on to face 8^th seed Sasha Alexander from Australia. Unlike Anais’ match both girls held their serves at the start of the match and it looked as though their serves would be the dominating part of the game. Sasha in particular had a very big 1^st serve but Holly knew that if she could neutralise it then she’d be able to take control in the baseline rallies. After starting really well Holly was broken at *2-3 and from there until she lost the set 6-2 she seemed to lose belief that she could beat the Australian. Sasha did have a big serve which was tough to return but she only made 7 in the entire 1st set and Holly did have break points at 2-2*.

After a toilet break Holly came out in the 2^nd set and looked much more confident; she started to stand a little further back on Sasha’s 2^nd serve to allow the spin to come off of the ball which made it easier to return and she also stepped up more during the rally to take control leading to more winners. Unfortunately though Holly was really struggling with her serve and after being broken again at *2-3 her unforced error count increased significantly resulting in her going down 6-2, 6-2. It was a tough result to take and as Holly put it “the consistency of the serving was the only difference” which was spot on. It’s another experience though and the most impressive thing was that even though Holly was frustrated with the way the match was going she maintained a fantastic discipline in every game which is a huge improvement from Austria.

By the time we had finished it was almost 6.30pm so while Holly went off to cool down and stretch out the other two players went to book practice and check out what time they are playing tomorrow.

For dinner tonight we were joined by Alexis Canter and his dad at the Fairview Hotel where we probably had the best meal of the trip – Mango Chicken was definitely the winner!

Schedule for tomorrow:

Holly Hutchinson (GBR) & Maria Ong (PHI) vs Mariam Mujawaimana (BDI) & Nidhi Surapaneni (IND) – 4^th match on after 9am

Boy’s consolation to be arranged as players become available.