Tuesday 6th May 2014
It was a tough day at the office today as Toby lost a tricky match against the no.2 seed and then in the afternoon Toby and Brandon lost a disappointing 1st round doubles match.
Our long day started with a 6.20am breakfast and then we were on court warming up at 7.30am for our 8am practice session with Brandon. Toby’s been hitting well all week and the pre-match session this morning was no different – his confidence has been growing with every match / training session and, considering he has only been on one previous ITF trip, he is looking very comfortable at this level.
After the session we had quite a bit of time to kill until Toby went on for his match; I got stuck into a bit of tournament planning while Toby split his time between watching some of the matches and playing Subway Surfers!! As the match before Toby’s was starting it’s second set we went through our pre-match preparations and then went on court to warm-up again which included a little movement work to get Toby sharp.
Toby then went on court at 12.20pm to take on 2nd seed Kris Van Wyk from South Africa. Toby was looking forward to the challenge of taking on a player ranked inside the top 275 in the world and he made life very tough for Kris to hold serve in the opening game. Unfortunately Toby was broken in the next game and he soon found himself 3-0 down following a strong service game from Kris. He kept fighting hard though and played some good tennis to hold serve 3 times before Kris went on to take the set 6-3.
The second set was almost identical to the first set but this time Toby was broken in the opening game and it was always going to be difficult to break back as Kris’ serve was getting better and better the longer the match went on. Toby held serve at *0-2 and *1-3 with some good tennis during the set but his consistency at a higher level just let him down a little when it really mattered. After breaking Toby at *2-4, Kris went on to hold serve with 3 unreturnable serves to take the match 6-3, 6-2. It was always going to be tough against a good player like Kris but Toby definitely felt that the early breaks in each set really cost him and if he can increase his consistency, then next time he could make it a much closer match.
We only had an hour a 15 minute break before Toby and Brandon were back on court for their 1st round doubles match. Before they went on I sat both of them down to go through what I expected from them on the doubles court and they had a clear gameplan both when serving and when returning.
.jpg)
Toby and Brandon warming up for their 1st round doubles match
They started the match against Tino Dahlem and James Roelofse very well and looked very dynamic in the opening two / three games . . . unfortunately after that the boys stopped moving as much and struggled to impose themselves as much at the net. Despite that, the first set went with serve until *4-5 when Brandon was broken and the boys found themselves a set down.
Toby and Brandon raced to a 3-0 lead at the start of the second set and kept hold of one of those breaks to take the set 6-4. Even though they were back on level terms I felt that it wasn’t a convincing set; 6 out of the 10 games were decided by a Sudden Death Deuce point and the amount that the boys were moving at the net and finishing first volleys was lower than during the first set. That meant that there was still a lot of work to do but it was Tino and James that started the match tie-break better and they quickly took a 4-1 lead. Toby and Brandon continued to work hard but a few poor shot selections at crucial times costs them a lot and their opponents went on to take the match 6-4, 4-6, 10-6.
Both boys were very disappointed with the result but it was their first match together and hopefully we can work a lot on their doubles before next week.
As we’re having a day off tomorrow Toby decided that he would like to have a change for dinner so, predictably, we headed off to Nando’s at 6pm. The food was actually pretty good but while Toby went for the hot sauce I decided that I would play it a bit safer and stick to the medium one!
We’re still undecided as to what we’re going to do tomorrow but we do have the options of a couple of game drives so we’ll see what happens!
