Monday 16th April 2012
After a brief couple of days back at home Mia and I drove back up to Nottingham yesterday evening so that we could have a full training day today in preparation for her main draw match tomorrow.
We left the hotel this morning at 8am and after a quick stop at Sainsbury’s to stock up on some food we were in the gym warming up at 8.30am. Mia then hit with Gaby Paul to warm her up for her last round qualifying match and then it was my turn to put Mia through her paces as we spent the next hour working on the specifics that we’d identified from Mia’s matches last week. This week is a little different from last week as now we’re preparing to play against girls who are up to 18 years old and it’s not likely that Mia’s going to come up against a player who only relies on being consistent to win the match. Mia’s going to need to play very smart no matter who she plays and take every opportunity that she’s given.
After a really good morning session we had some lunch at 11am and then watched some of the ATP event in Monte Carlo. We watched Rochus vs Verdasco and it was quite amusing to hear Gaby think that Rochus was 6ft 11inches and Mia think that he was 6ft 2inches when he’s actually 5ft 3inches!! The phrase “It’s not the size of the dog in the fight but the size of the fight in the dog” was definitely correct in that match as Rochus pushed Verdasco all the way until he eventually went down 7-5 in the 3rd.
Next on the agenda for Mia was her strength and conditioning and with 1 day to go before she competes she went through 2 sets of her agility programme then she went through her daily core and band work.
Mia then had a break of another hour before she was back on court with Ilinca Bercaru from Romania. Ilinca has to be one of the tallest girls in the event at around 6ft 1inch so it was a really good test for Mia’s game and I was really pleased that she not only held her own during the session but she also played very intelligently during a couple of tie-breaks to win both. The session was only around 1 hour long but it’s not about how long you’re on the court it’s about finding the level needed to compete at this level and Mia definitely did that.
At just after 4pm we left the court and headed into the gym to cool down and stretch out to finish a fantastic days training. Dinner tonight was at Pizza Express with Gaby Paul and Mark Ruffle from the Bromley Tennis Academy and then it was back to the hotel for Mia, Gaby and me while Mark headed out to watch Arsenal – will they come back from 2-0 down???
Here’s the girl’s main draw:
Schedule for tomorrow:
Mia Smith (GBR) (983) vs (1) Eden Silva (GBR) (351) – 1st match at 9am
