Prague U18 ITF Grade 4, Day 4

Wednesday 22^nd January 2014

After Alex’s tough match yesterday, Holly had an even tougher one today as she faced number 1 seed Vendula Zovincova from Czech Republic.

Due to the referee deciding yesterday he would release the practice sheet before he released the order of play, it meant that all the courts were booked out within 10 minutes. The crazy thing was that there were actually only 40 spaces available for 64 players to book for practice – same old story at these lower grade ITFs!! Tomorrow they’ve taken my advice and just allowed 20 minutes for practice – not ideal but at least everyone gets a court.

Even though everyone had booked the courts we knew that some players wouldn’t turn up so we arrived at the club at 7.40am and warmed up until just after 8am. Alex managed to jump on court with one of the Czech boys but Holly and I waited until 8.30am when a court became free. Just as we started to hit Anastasia arrived so she took my place which meant that I could be at Holly’s end of the court for the whole practice session. Holly had been hitting great all week and again she had a really good 30 minute warm up to prepare herself for her match.

The next 3-4 hours followed the same pattern as yesterday morning; I got on with some work on the computer while Holly and Alex either watched some of the matches or watched Murray vs Federer. As soon as the match before Holly’s went on court we sat down to discuss tactics and then kept a close eye on the score so Holly knew when to start her physical warm up.

Holly went on at 1.45pm and even from the warm up we knew it was going to be a really tough match. I had watched Vendula train with Anastasia on Monday but in the match she was even more focused and determined and it was no surprise that she is ranked 159 ITF and in the 800s WTA. Holly knew she would need to step up to the baseline in every rally and keep her opponent under pressure, but that was very tough against a good player. Vendula broke Holly 3 times in the first set to take it 6-0 and even though many of the games were close it was always the Czech who played the big points better.

Holly fought hard throughout and in the second set she started to take a few more risks which gave her more opportunities to win games. Unfortunately she couldn’t capitalise on those chances until she was 0-4* down when she broke her opponent for the first time. A combination of a higher level of hitting and moving forwards to take Vendula’s time away worked really well. At *1-4 Vendula raised her level again to break Holly and then hold serve to take the match 6-0, 6-1. It was similar to Alex’s match yesterday in terms of they both played opponents who played a better version of their own games. Both were tough results to take but hopefully Holly and Alex have a clear understanding of what they now need to work on in their games to move up to the next level.

After Holly had some time to herself, we talked through the match and then I was really pleased that Holly asked if we could get back on court to do some more training to find the level needed. Holly trained with Anastasia (who was still waiting to go on for her match!) for 20 minutes and then with me for a further 20-25 minutes before it got too dark in the bubble – and there was no way the club would turn the lights on for us as we weren’t allowed on the court in the first place!!

Once Holly had cooled down and stretched out we went back to the hotel and then it was a quick turnaround so we could get out to dinner early.

At 7pm we walked into the Old Town to finally see the real Prague and we were all really impressed by the medieval buildings and narrow lanes that lead down to the river. We then walked across Charles Bridge and took some photos before heading back to the hotel at around 8pm.

 

 

Alex fly’s home tomorrow so he won’t be competing in the doubles but here’s Holly’s draw:

Schedule for tomorrow:

Karolayne Alexandre Da Rosa (BRA) & Emilija Kravtaite (LTU) vs Holly Horsfall (GBR) & Sean Lodzki (ISR) – 4^th match after 9am, not before 2.30pm