Namibia U18 ITF Grade 5, Day 1

Thursday 8^th May 2014

The rest day yesterday saw the end of the first ITF here in Windhoek, and so today our preparations for the second week (a Grade 5 ITF) began before qualifying starts on Saturday.

At 5.30am this morning my alarm went off but I’m not sure I actually needed it as minutes later a huge rainstorm came down on the tin roof above my room! By the time we met at 6.20am for breakfast the rain had stopped but we had a feeling that the courts at the club would be completely out of action.

When we got there at 7am all of the courts were soaked and at first Toby didn’t think I was serious when I said we were going to warm up straight away, but then he soon realised that a wet court wasn’t about to stop us training! After the warm-up we went through a really good speed and movement session for an hour and even though the court was still wet, we managed to get through everything without falling over once!

Once we had finished, Toby had a 15 minute break to have a small snack and then, as the courts had dried out, we went back on for our tennis session. Toby was really keen to play after having the day off yesterday and from the start of the session his intensity was very good. We warmed up groundstrokes and volleys and then we managed to get the whole court to ourselves so we decided to go straight into some points. During the second ‘up to 11’ it started to rain and within 30 seconds it was coming down very hard. It was disappointing to stop but at least we managed to get a good 45 minutes in and it was still worth getting up early for.

We got a lift back to the hotel with Courtney Lock and his mum but even the short walk from where they dropped us off to our rooms was enough for us both to get completely soaked! We then stayed at the hotel for a few hours to relax and get some lunch before we got the shuttle back to the tennis club at 2pm.

Once again we went straight on court to warm up and then started hitting at around 2.30pm. We had already planned to play a practice set this afternoon with the main focus being finding the level that Toby had played against Kris, but increasing the consistency at that level. The first few games were quite tight but I managed to take the important points and took a 3-0 lead. Toby immediately raised his game and served and returned much better to hold and break me in the next game. At 3-2 I felt as though Toby was right back in the set but a couple of inconsistent games from him gave me at 5-2 lead. Toby then produced his best service game to keep the pressure on but, after another close game, I managed to serve it out to take the set 6-3. One of the best things about travelling individually with a coach is that you’ve always got a lot of time to review matches / training and get back on court to make improvements. After discussing the set Toby wanted to go straight into another one but this time we decided to play a short set up to 4 games. The level was much better and the games were a lot closer than the first set but I just managed to scrape through 4-2!

By the time we finished playing it was 4pm and so we decided to go straight into a strength and condition session for 40 minutes and then have a good stretch out before the shuttle left at 5pm.

Overall it was a really good day and even though it rained a lot this morning we still managed to get 2 conditioning sessions in as well as 2 on-court sessions.

Once we left the club we stopped at the supermarket to stock up on more supplies and then it was straight back to the hotel to shower and change before dinner.

Tomorrow will be a lighter day as qualifying starts on Saturday but, because of the lack of practice courts during the day, we’re still going to have to get up early to guarantee a court.