Sunday 5th February 2012
It was the final day of preparation for Mia today before her 1st round main draw tomorrow while the boys had their work cut out trying to find a partner for the doubles.
All of the players were up early this morning for a 7am breakfast and then they all trained together from 8 – 9.30am. It was good to have all three players together on court so that two could work together while I did some individual work with the other one. We were lucky enough to get two courts for the last hour so that we could play some full court points out and also work on serve and return.
By 9.30am we were all done and pleased with the morning session so now my attention moved to running with Dawn! We had a good 5 laps around the cricket pitch where Dawn beat her quickest time on each lap and just to add a competitive edge we got Mia to record a lap time. Her first one was only 20 seconds quicker than Dawn but once Mia realised what we were doing she wanted another go! On her second attempt she went off like a rocket and at half way we thought she was going to collapse but she eventually got through it 45 seconds quicker than her first go!
Everyone had a break in the middle of the day and our attention turned to trying to get the boys into the doubles. As they didn’t get into the singles qualifying they would go down as 5th priority on the entry list even if they played with the number 1 seed so I came up with the idea of them trying to find a local player and requesting a wildcard. With that the boys went their separate ways and started asking ever African player that could find. With both boys believing they had the best partner for a wildcard they wrote their letters and passed them on to the referee – we’ll see tomorrow if either of them were successful!
Mia was back on court for her 2nd session of the day at 2pm to play a practice set with Kasandra Kozub from Poland. She had a really good set and, despite the poor state of the practice courts, she found the best level that she’s played at from the back of the court and she also served well. She lost the set 6-4 but she felt good and ready for her main draw match tomorrow.
Mia driving into her serving during a practice set
As soon as she finished I left her to complete her strength and conditioning programme and went over to the Public Service Club to be on court with Jack and Tom. They had arranged sessions with different players to add variety in their training and when I arrived they were both working very hard. Jack was hitting with a boy from Canada and a boy from India while Tom had hooked up with a Russian boy who, like Tom, had not got into the qualifying draw.
Jack (in red) and Tom (in the air!) during training this afternoon
By the time we had finished both Jack and Tom were happy with their level but it was Tom that seemed extra-pleased as it was the first day for a while where he wasn’t feeling unwell and he was really enjoying working hard. After the session we walked back to the club (following Jack on a sneaky short-cut over a wall!!) and then Jack went through his maintenance programme while Mia and Tom had a thorough stretch out.
This evening we decided to get to the Fairview hotel early to make use of their free WiFi as all of our “pay as you go” internet on our dongles had run out! The players and I then each tucked into a big bowl of pasta while Dawn opted for the Quesadilla’s. It was then time to make some Skype calls home before walking back to the hotel for an early night.
Schedule for tomorrow:
To be confirmed once the final girl’s qualifying match is completed in the morning.
