Namibia U18 ITF Grade 4, Day 2

Friday 2^nd May 2014

Today was our first full day of training here in Namibia and Toby put in two great sessions which has prepared him very well for his first round qualifying match tomorrow.

There wasn’t a practice court booking system in place this morning so we decided to get up early and get to the club just after 9am to try to get a court before all the other players turned up! After warming up on court I took Toby through a footwork session which included some specific movement exercises, some medicine ball work and finally some speed work.

Toby and I then trained for just over an hour with the focus again being on adjusting to the altitude and getting more of a feel for the ball at a match level. Toby was hitting the ball well and as the session went on he became more confident to commit to the shot without the worry of the ball flying through the air took quickly and going long. Towards the end of the session we spent some time working on Toby’s serve and return as we knew that they would be fundamental in his match tomorrow and then we ended the session with a match tie-break. I’ve been instructed to make sure I state the result of the tie-break so here it is … Toby won 10-5 – but I’m going to make sure I get revenge later in the week!!

Once we had cooled down and stretched we got the shuttle bus back to the hotel to get some lunch and relax.

At 2.30pm we headed back over to the club to warm up for our second session of the day. Toby had another very good hour on court and, after warming up with Matthew Astell from South Africa, they played a lot of points to make sure they were both ready for their matches tomorrow.

At 4.15pm we headed off court to cool down, stretch out and sign-in for qualifying. The shuttle bus was then supposed to pick us up at 5pm to take us back to the hotel but, because it got delayed coming back from the airport, we had to persuade one of the tournament staff to give us a lift back!!

Dinner tonight was again at the hotel restaurant and on Toby’s recommendation I decided to go for the chicken curry – what he didn’t tell me was that it was pretty spicy!! Once we were finished (and I had put the flames out!) I checked my emails to find the draw and order of play had been sent through from the referee:

Schedule for tomorrow:

Toby Huffer (GBR) (UNR) vs Sam Bencheghib (FRA) (UNR) – 2^nd match after 8.30am