Monday 14th January 2013
There was a mixture of emotions today as, on one hand we had Holly Hutchinson making her final preparations before her 1st round main draw starts tomorrow, while on the other hand we had Alex who lost in the doubles and saw his tournament come to an end.
We knew today was going to be a long day as we were told over the weekend that the boy’s doubles would be after the 16 girl’s last round qualifying matches and the 32 boy’s 1st round singles matches. So with this in mind and also being aware that the players had been up early on the last 3 mornings we decided as a team last night that we should all have a later start to catch up on some sleep. That was the plan but following a heavy snowfall last night we were all rudely awoken at 7.30am by the guy across the street from the hotel scraping the snow from his driveway! My response to this was to get up and watch the Australian Open, Alex’s was to pull his pillow over his head and get another hour’s sleep and Holly Horsfall did what we all wanted to do and that was go out onto the balcony and ask him to keep the noise down – I’m not sure he understood her accent though!!
After breakfast we were picked up my Michael’s wife and taken to the tennis academy before Michael took us the final part of the journey to the tournament site. We arrived just before 11am which gave Alex an hour to find a doubles partner. I always let the players organise their own partners as I think it’s a great chance for them to talk to other players and get used to being outside of their comfort zone but today Alex was really struggling to find someone so at 11.50am I went on the hunt and managed to find an American who was in the singles main draw.
As soon as that was arranged I went with all of the players to the squash courts and after they completed their own physical warm up I took them through a speed and movement session for 45 minutes.
Moving much too fast for the camera!
Everyone worked really well together and by 1pm we were all finished and in need of some lunch so we went up to the restaurant for the standard Penne Bolognaise J
Due to a lot of the girl’s main draw players arriving today the amount of time we were able to spend on the practice court was very limited but we were able to get Alex a 40 minute session to warm up and work on some specifics before his doubles match and Holly Hutchinson secured a very good hour with 3 other main draw players. Holly Horsfall was also able to train with another main draw player and between the 3 players they managed to keep me on my toes for the whole afternoon!!
Alex went on for his doubles 1st round match with Spencer Furman from the USA at 5.15pm to face Patrik Obal and Peter Vajda from Slovakia. The first two games went with serve but at *1-1 Alex struggled to make enough 1st serves in and was broken. Alex and Spencer remained positive and responded by breaking straight back and holding to take a 3-2 lead but it was again in Alex’s service game that the team were struggling which resulted in another break of serve. The Slovakians then took their chances on Spencer’s serve at *3-5 to break to love to take the set 6-3.
Spencer (serving) and Alex during their doubles match
During the second set Spencer and Alex continued to return quite well and attack at the right times but a lack of movement at the net combined with some missed volley opportunities resulted in the boys being broken twice as they eventually went down 6-3, 6-1. Alex had performed quite well throughout and had definitely stepped up his level from his singles match but maybe he felt a little under pressure by playing with a strong partner which meant that he was a little more reluctant than normal to move at the net. It was still another positive match and one that Alex will take a lot from.
After the match Alex and I had a quick debrief and then he went off to cool down and stretch out while I took on the crowd in the referee’s office to fight for a practice court for Holly for tomorrow before her 1st round singles match.
We ended up leaving the site at 7.15pm this evening and managed to get a lift back by one of Michael’s former players as he was coaching all evening which meant that it was a case of dropping the bags in the hotel room and then heading straight out to dinner. I was quite up for a change of scenery and suggested going back to the Italian restaurant that we ate in on the first night but as Holly’s playing tomorrow she got to choose so it was back to the Bavarian place for the third night in a row! Still … the food is good, the atmosphere is great and they put up with our forfeits which are getting crazier by the day – make sure you check out Alex’s warm up tomorrow!!
Girl’s Singles Main Draw
Schedule for tomorrow:
Mira Antonitsch (AUT) (855) vs Holly Hutchinson (GBR) (1598) – 5th match after 8am, not before 1pm
Doubles to be played not before 4pm
