Tuesday 15th February 2011
Despite telling the girls that we would have breakfast at 8.15am they were again down early and joined me around 7.45am. I was busy compiling information and factsheets for upcoming trips which was much to their disappointment as they just wanted to use the computer to check their Facebook!
We made our way over to the club at 9.30am and to our surprise court 1 was up and lined and we were told we could hit on it as they wanted to try and start matches a little earlier than scheduled to catch up from yesterday. We jumped on and managed to stay on there until 10.15am, fending off the foreigners and allowing the Bath team to go on when we were done – all the Brits working together, that’s what we like to see!
Farah was 1st up at 10.45am. After yesterday she was 6-3, 2-0 down and we’d had a long chat about the match and what we wanted to try and achieve to get back on track. To her credit she did cut down the unforced errors from yesterday and won the first game once they re-started but she really struggled with her serve and ended up going down 6-3, 6-1. There were lots of positives that came from it and after this week and last week she knows she can compete with top 200-300 players.
As soon as Farah had finished Devan was on so it was straight over to the court to begin our support. During days like these the players have the tough job of managing time, staying out of the sun, watching their court to see when they’re going on be on, eating at the right time and getting everything prepared and the coach has the tough job of going from match to match, preparing and debriefing and making sure the players are doing everything they need to. Luckily the three girls are very professional and it means I can concentrate more on the players on court and less about the ones off the court!
Devan was playing a Belgian girl who is out here as part of a big group from the “6th Sense” Academy and the girls had met before in Luxemburg qualifying where Devan had taken a win. Devan started a little erratically going 2-0 down after two very long games but settled down after that and went from 0-2 to 5-2 by playing some very solid, well constructed points. She was broken at 5-2 but nothing was going to faze Devan today and she regained her focus to take the set 6-3. Two big goals for Devan today were to reduce the number of unforced errors (she set 15 or less in a set as her target) and stay positive throughout. In the first set the unforced errors were a little high but in the second she hit 14 and at the same time hit 9 winners taking the set 6-3. She was very positive throughout and didn’t let either of the two breaks of serve against her bother her in the second set – a very professional performance and a great start to the week.
Beth was due to be on at the same time as Devan but Court 2 was struggling to dry and eventually at 2.45pm she got moved off site to the Public Service courts which were a 5 minute walk away. The courts there were actually much better and Beth took full advantage. Britt Geukens had made the Semi-Finals last week and it could have been a tricky match but Beth’s been working very hard on her shape and consistency and used it to great effect today taking the girl away from the court before stepping up and hitting the space early. Beth hit 12 winners in the first and 13 unforced errors (I always think a good target is 10-15 winners a set and 10 or less unforced errors) taking the set 6-2. She then kept on top of the girl in the second racing to a 5-1 lead before getting a little edgy and losing a little focus allowing her opponent to get back to 5-4. Beth maintained her professionalism throughout and broke the girl to 15 to take the match 6-2, 6-4. It was a great result and a very good performance from Beth – a lefty on clay, definitely one I’d prefer to avoid!!
We were finished for the day after a long cool down at 6pm and met up with the Bath team for dinner. Farah had a tough match today but hopefully learned a lot, Devan and Beth performed well and have interesting matches in the last 16 tomorrow. Devan plays Farah’s doubles partner from last week while Beth plays the girl that beat Devan last week in the 1/4’s:
Schedule for tomorrow:
(8) Beth Askew (GBR) (872) Vs Hariniony Andriamamanarivo (MAD) (1294) – 2nd on after 9am
Devan McCluskey (USA) (1750) vs (6) Michelle Onyancha (KEN) (772) – 2nd on after 9am
Doubles to follow unless it rains again!
