Thursday 17th February 2011
Like last week it was now down to the business end of the week today when the points get greater and the players have no choice but to perform if they want to make Semi-Finals and Finals.
We woke up to a dry morning for once, everyone met for breakfast at 8am and by 9am we were making our way over to the club to warm up. We hit from 9.30am until around 10.15am on what was more like an ice rink than a tennis court! It was very difficult to keep any kind of rally going and Beth managed to end up on the floor a few times!
Beth went on around 11.30am and from the start she struggled to find the form of the last two days. It was a similar match to when she played Devan last week where she was very inconsistent allowing the player to pick up lots of cheap points in every game. Despite the errors she went 4-2 up in the first, her Austrian opponent came back to lead 5-4 but Beth fought hard to hold, break and hold again to take the set 7-5. The second was almost identical to the first; Beth played ok in stages but it was far too inconsistent for a 1/4 Final match. She took a 4-3 lead and then served for the match at 5-4 but played 3 loose games and lost the set 7-5. There was no doubt in my mind that Beth was going to come through the match and win but she had to address the unforced errors as well as the fact she was building up her opponents confidence by feeding her mid-court balls. The third continued the same way as the first two sets; Beth went 4-2 up but couldn’t hold on and lost the next 4 games to go down 5-7, 7-5, 6-4 in over 3hrs. It was a tough one to watch let alone to lose but Beth has performed much better this week and once she gets more matches under her belt she’ll close out these matches even if she’s not performing well.
While Beth was still in the third set Farah went on for doubles and by the time I got there they were at 4-4 and starting a tie-break (short sets due to the rain). They eventually lost the tie-break 7-0 but I found out later they were 3-1 up in the set! With these short sets you have to start quickly and put your opponents away before they get into the match. Once Brigit and Alicia won the first their confidence grew and they took the second 4-2. Farah had been struggling with a big blister on her toe which was causing her a lot of pain but despite losing the match she put in a good performance to end her week.
Beth had an hour and a half to recover from her match and at 4pm she was back on the court with Devan to face the girl she had just lost to and the Italian girl who won the tournament last week. Beth took a couple of games to get into it, which was expected after a tough loss, and Devan did a great job of encouraging her and keeping the team strong. After 4 breaks of serve Beth and Devan held and broke to take the set 4-2. They had relaxed and were playing good doubles and took that into the second set where they won it 5-3. It was a good boost after a tough, long day on court.
The girls ran for 10 minutes at the end of the day and then had a long stretch out before we went out for dinner with the Bath team who are flying home tomorrow.
Schedule for tomorrow:
Devan McCluskey (USA) & Beth Askew (GBR) vs (3) Michelle Onyancha (KEN) & Anastasia Reimchen (GER) – 2nd on after 9am
Winner to play the semi-final later in the day.
