Namibia U18 ITF Grade 4, Day 4

Sunday 4^th May 2014

It was another good day at the Central Tennis Club today as Toby came through a potentially tricky match to secure his place in the Main Draw.

We met for breakfast this morning at 7am and then took the 7.30am bus to the club. We again had the option of the getting the 8.30am bus but if it had been late then we wouldn’t have had enough time to warm up before our 9 o’clock practice session.

Once we had gone through our physical warm-up we took to the court and had a good 30 minute match warm-up session which today, as we knew a little about Toby’s opponent, was based around the tactics he was going to use. We also knew that the Sun could be a factor in the match as it was directly behind the court and by the time Toby would go on for his match it would be in a very difficult position. With that in mind we changed ends a few times during the session so that Toby was fully prepared for his match.

At 9.30am the first round of matches went on so Toby and I went off to start to prepare his game plan and goals for his match. The match before Toby’s was very close and lasted almost two hours but eventually it was time for Toby to take to the court to face Alosha Chikanda from Zimbabwe.

Toby started the match very well and even though we knew that Alosha had a good heavy forehand, Toby dealt with it with ease. Toby quickly took a 2-0* lead and was dominating the points from the back of the court with very good accuracy. During the break before Toby’s match we had watched some of the other last round matches and we both agreed that the best players are managing to control the ball at this altitude by really committing to every ball they hit – and that was exactly what Toby did at the start of the match! Alosha held serve at 2-0* but Toby continued to keep the pressure on with some very good serving and good hitting from the back of the court to take the next 4 games in a row.

Toby didn’t start the second set well and 4 unforced errors in his first service game saw him fall 0-1* behind. He responded professionally though and won the next 4 games in a row to take a commanding 6-1, 4-1 lead. At this stage it was looking as though the match was done and dusted but Toby took his foot off the gas a little and at the same time Alosha decided he would produce his best tennis of the match! The following two games went against Toby and at 4-3* he started to play without the same freedom that he had in the first set and a half. The next game was very important and to his credit Toby managed to settle himself well to break straight back to go *5-3 up. Toby then played a solid service game and, despite not being able to convert on his first 2 match points, he took the 3^rd and let out a big “Come on!” as he secured his place in his first U18 ITF Main Draw.

After the match we had a brief chat and then Toby cooled down and stretched out before the bus came to take us back to the hotel for lunch.

At 3pm we headed back to the club and had another very good hour on court to work on some specific points that had come up from the match. We were joined on court by Courtney Lock who is the number 1 seed this week and has just returned from playing Grade 1 events in France and Italy. It was great for Toby to train with Courtney and it gave him an excellent opportunity to gage the level of someone who is close to the top 200 in the world.

After the boys were finished they both cooled down and had a good stretch out before we got the bus back to the hotel.

At dinner tonight we were joined by Sophie, Luke (her father) and Brandon Levendale from Zimbabwe. We had a good meal despite the waiter struggling with every order that we placed and it was great to share stories about places and tournaments that we had all been to.

Once we were finished Toby and I went through today’s match in detail and started to prepare for his next match tomorrow.

Schedule for tomorrow:

(q) Toby Huffer (GBR) (UNR) vs Clemens Roeber (NAM) (UNR) – 3^rd match after 8.30am (not before 11am)