Wednesday 18th November 2015
It was a disappointing end to our time here in Norway as Toby went down in both singles and doubles today.
We were up very early this morning and in the lobby of the hotel warming up at 6.30am as the tennis centre doesn’t open until 7am. We then walked over to the courts and were let in my Carl Maes who had been entrusted with the key today – it was a good job that he did have it too otherwise our 30 minute warm up would have been undone within minutes in the cold outside!
Toby and I had a good training session for an hour and were able to go through all of the things that we wanted to work on yesterday evening but weren’t able to due to the matches overrunning. We warmed up as normal and then did some drilling, point play out of the hand and then finished the session with some serving points. We then headed back to the hotel and went straight up to the 21st floor for some well-earned breakfast.
At just before 9.15am we went back over to the tennis centre to have a brief warm-up to prepare for Toby’s 9.30am match against 6th seed Marcus Sulen from Norway. Even though the first 4 games of the match went with serve they were quite flat from both players and it was Marcus that raised his game first and broke Toby to take a 2-4* lead. Toby tried hard to stay with his opponent but by this stage Marcus was full of confidence and reeled off the next two games with 6 winners and only 2 unforced errors to take the first set 6-2.
At the start of the second set Toby raised his hitting level and his intensity which took him from *1-2 down to *3-2 up with a very important break of serve. It was at this stage that I felt as though the momentum was shifting in the match but Marcus kept his frustrations in check and fought hard to break back and hold to regain a lead in the set. The *3-4 game was crucial to the match and unfortunately 4 unforced errors from Toby handed Marcus another break and he took advantage by holding serve in the next game to take the match 6-2, 6-3.
Credit as always has to go to Marcus for the win but Toby and I were left reflecting on a match that was definitely winnable.
We headed back to the hotel so that Toby could shower and change and then we walked down the road to the supermarket to get some lunch. We only had just over an hour and a half to have lunch and rest before we needed to be back over to the tennis centre to warm up for the doubles.
Normally when a match is scheduled for ‘not before 2pm’ it usually goes on around 2.30/3pm but court 6 was racing through the matches today and Toby went on exactly on time. The main focus for the doubles was to work on finishing more first volleys and also hit the targets when serving to set up Toby’s partner at the net.
Having trained with Gilbert Jaeger and Axel Oljons on Monday we knew that they were both good players and in particular Axel had a big serve and Gilbert was sharp around the net. When the match began Toby and Neil Oberleitner from Austria started poorly and were broken in three of their first four service games. Some of that was due to Toby and Neil not having played together but the majority of it was just down to their Swedish opponents being very switched on. At *1-5 Toby played a very good game to hold for the first time with 5 out of 6 first serves but Gilbert held in the next game to take the opening set 6-2.
The second set was completely the opposite of the first set; Toby and Neil started very well and it was Axel and Gilbert that struggled on their own serves. Despite losing a sudden death deuce game at 2-1* on Gilbert’s serve, Toby and Neil continued to apply the pressure on the number 2 seeds and after holding all 5 of their service games they eventually got a set point at 5-4* sudden death deuce with Alex serving. Unfortunately the Swedes held their nerve and their serve to level the set and then went on to break Neil to take a 5-6* lead. Gilbert then served well to take the match 6-2, 7-5.
Despite the loss (and the performance in the first set!) both Toby and I were very pleased with how the boys responded after the first set and the quality of doubles that they produced in the second set. If Toby can continue to develop his doubles like he did in the second set then I know that these matches will go his way in the near future.
For dinner tonight we once again headed to AMFI shopping centre to go to PastaPasta and then it was back to the hotel to pack everything up ready for our flight back to London tomorrow.
The last international trip of the year starts on Saturday and is to the Grade 5 ITF in the Bahamas. Join us then to see how it’s all going in (hopefully!) some much warmer weather than we’ve had here!
