Thursday 9th February 2012
It was a really tough day at the office today for Jack who was playing for his first ITF points but just fell short in a tight 3 set match.
After getting into the doubles draw yesterday as an Alternate Jack was fired up and ready to go this morning as we took to the practice court at 8am with his Russian partner Maxim Dmitriev. Maxim, like Jack, did not get into the singles qualifying draw and so for both of them this was a big chance to pick up their first ITF points and secure an under 18 world ranking.
The boys trained together for an hour while on the next court Mia and Tom each trained with one of the South African girls that we’d gone out to dinner with last night. Everyone had a really good session; it was nice to see such a high level of tennis being played and a really motivated team after a disappointing week of results. Jack’s motivation was obvious but for Tom and Mia their attention was now firmly on next week and being at a level to perform well throughout the last event.
At 9am we were all finished which left Jack with an hour to recap on his last doubles match, set some new goals for today’s match and then get himself ready to play. He took to the court with Maxim at 10am to take on wildcards Costin Economu from Romania and Francesco Migliano from Italy. Both of their opponents were from the Sánchez-Casal Academy in Spain and as Tom used to train there he new both of them pretty well.
Jack and Maxim had an ideal start to the match as Jack held serve in the first game, they then broke Costin’s serve and Maxim then held well to make it 3-0. Jack was moving very well at the net and his volleys were very sharp while Maxim was playing very consistently from the back of the court which often set Jack up at the net. From 3-0* the set went with serve until Jack and Maxim took it 6-3.
At the start of the 2nd set the boys decided that Maxim would serve first which surprised me as Jack had been serving so well but he held serve to level the set at 1-1*. At this stage it was obvious that of their opponents Costin was by far the stronger player; Francesco was quite solid from the back of the court but it was Costin that was making things happen for their team. At *1-2 Jack’s serve was broken and it was the first time that Maxim had looked weak at the net – in doubles it’s often the net player that will determine if a pair hold serve on not as they are the ones that can take the pressure off the server by moving and putting pressure on the returner. After trailing *1-4 Maxim held serve and then the boys broke straight back to bring the set back on serve but once again Maxim let Jack down in his service game which resulted in Jack being broken for the 2nd time. Francesco then served out the set thanks to Costin’s sharp net play and we were into a 3rd set match tie-break.
This was the third time that Jack had gone to 3 sets when playing for his first ITF ranking but it was to be 3rd time unlucky for him as some easy missed volleys from both of our boys resulted in them going 8-4 down. Jack and Maxim continued to fight hard but Costin and Francesco had the finish line in their sights and eventually took the match 3-6, 6-3, 10-6.
Once again it was hugely disappointing for Jack but he was boosted by the fact that it was by far his best doubles performance in this level of event. He moved at the net more than any of his previous matches and finished off more first volleys but at the end of the day both players need to perform well to get a victory and today that didn’t happen.
As we’ve been away for 14 days and have only had 1 rest day I gave the players the option last night of deciding what they did today before we rested on Friday. Jack had his doubles match so he had to play but Tom and Mia decided to do a solid half day before resting in the afternoon. That meant that from around 1pm all of the players were back at the hotel and getting on with some much needed school work. I’ve been very pleased with how the players have got on with their school work especially Tom who takes great pleasure in telling us how well he’s doing with it all!!
We headed out for dinner early tonight so that we could get back and play some more snooker afterwards. I played a 3-way game with Tom and Jack and after we all struggled to earn more points that we gave away in fouls I eventually came through in 1st place with Tom in 2nd and a very frustrated Jack in 3rd – it just wasn’t his day today!
Rest day tomorrow but it’s not going to be a day relaxing by the pool as we’re up early at 5.45am to go on Safari for the whole day – bring it the Big 5!!
