Prague U18 ITF Grade 4, Day 1

Sunday 19^th January 2014

Welcome to the first Blog of 2014!

Last year was fantastic and hopefully this year will be even better as I try to help more players develop their games, gain more experience and increase their rankings.

For the first trip of the year I am joined by Alex Hagon and Holly Horsfall but the 7am meet at Gatwick airport this morning wasn’t necessarily something either of them had been looking forward to! Anastasia Mikheeva will also be joining the team on Wednesday but for now it is just the three of us!

Everything went smoothly as we left Gatwick and an hour and forty minutes later we arrived in Prague. For most of the flight I had my head down reading Court Confidential by Neil Harman which is a brilliant insight to the things you don’t necessarily read about on the Pro Tour – thanks Holly Hutchinson for a great Christmas present! However, as we started our descent I closed my eyes for a quick 10 minute nap and when I woke I had both Alex and Holly giggling at the pictures they had taken of me while I was asleep – cheers guys!

We were met at the airport and taken on a little tour of Prague before arriving at our hotel for the week. 15 minutes later we had all changed and were out the door walking to the Metro station to get a train to the club.

The I.Ceský Lawn Tennis Club is one of the most prestigious clubs in Prague and is situated on a little island in the middle of the city:

Unfortunately in 2002 a huge flood hit the city and the tennis club took the brunt of it:

After we arrived and had a look around the club, Holly and Alex warmed up and then had a really good training session for one hour on the permanent indoor courts. Holly has a few days to get used to the courts and the environment but as Alex is playing in Qualifying it was important that he found a good level as soon as possible. Within 10 minutes Alex was striking the ball very well and he maintained a high level all the way up until we played points at the end of the session … when he played even better!

At 5pm Holly had a 30 minute break before she was back on court for her last session of the day with Frederica Sema from Italy. While Holly trained, Alex signed in, cooled down and stretched out before joining us on court until the end of the session.

When Holly had cooled down and changed we headed back to the hotel to shower before it was time for dinner – I was very impressed with Holly getting ready in 20 minutes, normally the girls take forever!!

We had dinner tonight at Coloseum which is an Italian pizza and pasta restaurant just down the road from our hotel. The food was superb and so I think we could be going back there a few times this week!!

Just after we had finished dinner the draw was released; Alex is seeded 2 in qualifying and due to a bye in the first round he will now play his first match on Tuesday.