Namibia U18 ITF Grade 5, Day 5

Monday 12^th May 2014

It was an excellent start to the second week here in Windhoek, as Toby produced his best match of the trip to advance to the 2^nd round.

My day started a little earlier than Toby’s today as I got the 7am shuttle bus to make sure we got the timeslot we wanted on the only practice court available at the club. I then made my way back to the hotel and met Toby for breakfast at 8.30am. The plan was then to get the 9.30am shuttle to the club but once again it didn’t turn up! Luckily the hotel driver was available so he took us to the club and then at 10am we started to warm up for our practice session.

Our pre-match hit lasted just over 30 minutes and Toby was both hitting well and feeling positive by the time we finished. Between 11am and when Toby went on at 12.30am we spent the time preparing for the match by going through Toby’s pre-match sheet, keeping updated on the score on his court and staying relaxed by once again setting forfeits based on achieving a certain score on Subway Surfers!

I’m not sure whether it was the specific pre-match preparations that we went through or taking Toby’s mind off the match by competing with me on iPhone games, but whatever it was it definitely worked as Toby produced a very good performance!

He started the match against Pieter Theron from Namibia very well and raced to a 4-0 lead. Over the past 4 days we’ve worked hard on him dictating points and playing at a consistently aggressive level and throughout the first 4 games he did that very well. Pieter then held serve twice in the next 4 games but in response Toby also held serve to take the set 6-2.

During the second set Pieter upped his game but by this stage Toby was feeling confident and continued to take the set to his opponent. One of Toby’s main goals was to maintain a 60-40 balance during each point and, even though Pieter increased his winner count from the first set, Toby made sure that his opponent had to work very hard for every point he won. Even at break point and game points down Toby continued to play aggressive tennis which ultimately saw him come through the second set 6-0.

It was a very good performance from Toby but, rather than us just take it easy after the match, we went straight onto the practice court to work on a few areas of his game for about 10 minutes before he cooled down and stretched out. By the time we got up to the referee’s office the doubles draw had been released:

We then headed to Nando’s again for lunch where once again Toby’s attention turned to getting his own back on me for the forfeits he’d been doing all weekend! After losing the first battle I had to ask the waitress for a hairnet and then proceed to wear it during my meal and the plan was to wear it on the way back to the club too:

However, the tables soon turned on Toby as he lost the second game and he had to take over the wearing of it both on the way back to the club and also at dinner this evening!

After lunch we went back to the club (for Toby to show off his new hair accessory to everyone there!) and then got on court with Brandon from 4-5pm for some specific doubles training. Toby and Brandon’s match last week had not been of the level that any of us had expected but this afternoon they worked very hard on their movement and placement of their volleys. We all wanted to stay on court longer as the session was of a superb level but the last bus back to the hotel was at 5pm so we had to take that one.

Once we got back Toby stretched out by the swimming pool and then we went back to our rooms to relax before dinner.

As we walked into the restaurant this evening everyone caught the sight of Toby with his hairnet on and even though his face went rather red I think he loved the attention from the girls!!

Throughout the whole meal he kept bugging me to play again so that he could win his way out of the forfeit and eventually he won which saw me do 20 press-ups in the middle of the restaurant with the hairnet on!!

It was a good, hard-working day on the court and a fun day off the court today – hopefully tomorrow will be more of the same!

Schedule for tomorrow:

(14) Damon Kesaris (RSA) (1497) vs (wc) Toby Huffer (GBR) (UNR) – 2^nd match after 8.30am

Toby Huffer (GBR) & Brandon Levendale (ZIM) vs Shabani Kabura (BDI) & Muzingaye Sibanda (ZIM) – 4^th match after 8.30am (not before 12.30pm)