Sunday 12th February 2012
After just scraping into the qualifying draw it was now down to Jack and Tom to make the most of their opportunity and perform well in their matches today.
Both of the boys were scheduled to be 1st on at 9am so we all had breakfast at 6.45am, warmed up off court from 7.40 – 8am and then were on court for our pre-match hit from 8 – 8.30am. I hit with Jack while Mia warmed Tom up and by the end of our time on court both boys were feeling good and ready for their matches. During the next 30 minutes both players went through their pre-match talk with me and filled out their goal sheets before they took to the court at 9am.
Our pre-arranged plan was for me to watch Jack on court 4 for his first set and then move over to watch Tom on court 1 for his second set. After that we decided that I would stay with whoever was having the toughest match until it was completed.
Jack started nervously against Daniel Kirsch from Austria but he broke at 1-1 and despite playing a little erratically throughout the set he managed to stay on top after the early break and took the set 6-2. Jack wasn’t playing as confidently as he has in the past two weeks but, as always, he was working hard and fighting for each point making life difficult for his opponent. As soon as Jack took the first set I left him in his dad’s capable hands and moved over to court 1 to see how Tom was getting on.
Tom had been nervous last night but it certainly wasn’t showing during the first set. I’d looked over a few times while I was behind Jack’s court and saw Tom hitting extremely well from the back of the court and really taking the game to his opponent. Tom was taking on Akram El Sallaly from Egypt who he’d played a couple of practice sets with yesterday but today his level was much higher. When I arrived Tom was 5-1 down in the 1st set but Dawn told me that he was playing very well and on 3 separate occasions in the set had game points.
After losing the first set 6-1 Tom dug deep to keep in touch with his opponent and on 2 occasions he was a break up but struggled to hold on to his own serve. When he was 4-2 up serving it looked as though he was going to take the set comfortably but the Egyptian fought back to level the set at 4-4 and then it went with serve until the tie-break. The tie-break was very tight all the way through; Tom lead 6-4 but was pegged back to 6-6 before he eventually took it 9-7 with a huge running forehand down the line winner on set point. It was a huge effort from Tom and he thoroughly deserved taking that set as he really stepped up and took the game to his opponent throughout.
Tom continued his high level at the start of the third but at 2-2 you could tell that his energy levels started to drop while at the same time his opponent became even more solid. All of the physical and mentally effort that Tom had put into the 2nd set had left him exhausted and he lost the next 4 games in a row to go down 6-1, 6-7(7), 6-2 in just over 3 hours. It was an extremely positive match from Tom and, according to him, was one of his best performances ever.
While Tom was in the tie-break Jack had won his match 6-2, 6-3 and so was courtside supporting Tom throughout his 3rd set.
After Tom had finished we all headed back to the hotel for some lunch before Jack and I started his pre-match preparations for his last round qualifying match against Oskar Michalek from Poland.
Following a court change they went on at 3.30pm and it was looking as though it was going to be a really close match after there were 4 breaks of serve in the first 4 games. Unfortunately for Jack the inconsistency that he showed this morning was still apparent in his game and the next 4 games went against him to give Oskar the 1st set 6-2. At the start of the 2nd set Jack broke in the first game and then held to lead 2-0* but Oskar then produced some very smart tennis to take the next 4 games in a row to lead 4-2. Jack kept his head up and immediately broke back to get the set back on serve but that was to be the last game he won in the match as he went down 6-2, 6-3.
It wasn’t a good day for Jack and he was disappointed with his level in both matches; he knew that he was capable of a much higher level but today it just wasn’t happening for him. After the match he went straight up to the referee to see if he could get a Lucky Loser and was told that there were 2 spaces available. There were no tactics involved this week in pulling his number out of the hat but, after Jack had pulled another player out of the hat first, his number was picked second and so he moved into the main draw – what a lucky boy!!
After the draw was done at 6pm we went out for dinner to the Fairview Hotel and were joined by Tony for the last time before he flies back to Cairo this evening.
Schedule for tomorrow:
Mateusz Izycki (POL) (1560) vs (LL) Jack Large (GBR) (UNR) – 3rd match after 9am
Waitherero Memba (KEN) (UNR) vs Mia Smith (GBR) (1031) – 4th match after 9am
