Saturday 4th February 2012
It was a tough day for the boys today as our suspicions were confirmed that they would not quite make the cut-off to get into the qualifying draw.
Tom and I had an early breakfast at 7am so that we could get on court by 8am and get the whole court to ourselves. We then had a good session for an hour and a half where we continued to work on how Tom constructs the points and how aggressive he is from the back of the court. It was very much a session to push Tom outside his comfort zone and the results were very pleasing for both of us.
A little friend watching us train on Centre Court today
During the last 30 minutes of the session Jack arrived to warm up and by 9.30am he was ready to start his individual session with me. Just like Tom, Jack worked very hard and performed well during the session as we worked on developing his game both from the back of the court and when he comes forwards.
During the time the boys were on court with me, Mia was training off site but on her return we all got together to have some well earned lunch while we watched some of the boy’s and girl’s singles finals. The boy’s final was of a high quality and the winner was actually the Italian boy that beat Jack in the final round of qualifying! The girl’s final was disappointing as both players were just making balls and waiting for the other person to miss – I said to all of the players at the start of the week that the winner of each event would not be the one that looks the best but the one that is the most consistent and this was definitely the case with the girls. The girl’s winner was actually the Ukrainian that was 3-1 down to Mia in their first set!
After the matches Mia was back on court to play a practice set with a Serbian girl while Jack had a solid hour of serving. Mia lost a close set 6-4 but applied herself well and was happy with her own performance while Jack made significant improvements on the consistency of his first serve.
After each of the players went through their fitness for the day they stretched out and showered ready for dinner. Before we left for dinner we went back to the tennis courts to see if the boys had got into the qualifying but unfortunately Tom was 6 places out and Jack was 7 places out. We were all very disappointed that they didn’t get in but in total there were 9 players who competed last week (in the “stronger” Grade 4 event) that didn’t get into this week’s Grade 5 event.
Everyone was a little down at dinner but our spirits were lifted by the restaurant entertainment guy who always had a big smile on his face!
The boys will now put in a full training week and hope to get into the doubles on Monday while Mia will complete her final day of training tomorrow before her main draw starts on Monday.
