Monday 4th April 2011
I drove up from Kent yesterday evening to Nottingham to meet up with the Bromley Academy Team of Anouska Newman and Nicole Daisley. Clint Harris, the director of the Academy, was also with them and I drove straight to the restaurant to have dinner with them and discuss the days play. Unfortunately Anouska and Nicole both lost in the first round of qualifying but Nicole had a tricky three set match in which she played well and Anouska had specific goals to achieve this week which she managed to from the start to the end of the match.
The qualifying draws for both boys and girls was very weak this year and I was very disappointed to see 2 byes in the boys and 9 byes in the girls. So far this year all of the junior international events in Great Britain (U14 TE in Bolton, U16 TE in Roehampton and U18 ITF in Nottingham) have had byes in either the boys or the girls qualifying, or in some cases both. If the standard in this country is to improve we really need to be filling our international draws and I think questions have to be asked to the IHPCs and HPCs why their up and coming players aren’t signing in. There were enough players on the entry list but they’re not making the commitment to play in a Grade 4 ITF when it’s on their doorstep.
A overcast start to the tournament with rain on the way!
As none of the girls were competing today it was a day of training to get them ready for the doubles and then their events next week. We arrived at a very overcast Nottingham Tennis Centre early this morning and watched some of the last round of qualifying matches before the girls warmed up in the gym and then got on court to train. We were joined this morning by Sam Matheson and Claudia Williams from New Zealand who Clint spoke to yesterday and invited them to train with us today. I think it’s very important to train with lots of different players from around the world whenever you can but some players tend to take the easy option of staying in a comfortable bubble and training solely with their friends. It was great for Anouska and Nicole to train with a player ranked 400 in the world and hopefully it will give them confidence knowing that they can live with and compete with a player of that level. We spent an hour and a half training together in very difficult cold, windy conditions (which the Kiwi’s hated J) before the rain came down.
After lunch, and after we had dried the courts, we were back on court for another couple of hours to work on Anouska and Nicole’s doubles. I would have ended up the overall winner if it hadn’t been for some disgraceful cheating from Anouska and Clint!!
Frankie Faulkes came up today to sign in for the main draw and will train with us for the week so we’re all looking forward to cheering her on in her first round match tomorrow.
Dinner tonight was Anouska’s choice so we went Italian (definitely no objections from me!) and ended up at Prezzo.
Early start tomorrow but I think the rain could cause a few problems, not ideal when there are 64 matches to be played!!
Schedule for tomorrow:
(10) Sam Matheson (NZL) (461) vs Tommy Bennett (GBR) (785) – 2nd round after 9am
Samantha Koelliker (SUI) (925) vs Francesca Faulkes (GBR) (1777) – 3rd round N.B. 11.30am
(5) Claudia Williams (NZL) (443) vs (q) Athena Chrysanthou (GBR) (UNR) – 4th round N.B. 12.30pm
