Monday 11th July 2011
It was a disappointing day today at the Solihull International Tennis Europe event but not due to any players performing poorly or losing, it was actually because we weren’t able to compete or train much on court!
It was always going to be a long day today as Mia was scheduled to be 5th round of matches on and we were only able to practise on the clay before 9am. As usual we were at the club at 8am going through our physical warm up and then on the court from 8.30 – 9am to complete our pre-match warm – it was a great session; Mia was very intense and the training we had done yesterday was showing. As Mia had a “Not Before” time of 3pm we decided we would train in the morning and then relax after lunch so we went straight in the gym to complete Mia’s strength & stabilisation programme. After that it was onto the bike for 20mins and then a stretch, shower and change before we left site for lunch.
The sign in for the two Lucky Loser spaces ended at 11.30am and much to my astonishment when I called up at 12pm I was told not a single player had signed in. I was annoyed at this for a few reasons, mainly because I want Mia to compete and earn her place in the next round rather than just get a walkover but also because I’m starting to see a similar pattern in the girl’s draws in international events in Britain that needs to be addressed.
This year I was in Bolton for Teen Tennis which is one of the strongest events in the U14 calendar and has players like Kim Clijsters as a previous winner. It’s Britain’s only Tennis Europe Grade 1 event and yet there were still 3 byes in the girl’s qualies draw (0 in the boys). In March Britain had an U16 Tennis Europe grade 3 event at the National Tennis Centre in Roehampton again the girl’s qualies draw was not full with a total of 16 byes (half the draw), the boys draw was full. The next junior international in Britain was the U18 ITF in Nottingham in April; week 1 had 9 byes in the girl’s qualies (2 in the boys) and week 2 had 14 byes in the girls draw (0 in the boys) – see a pattern immerging? Last week in Edinburgh there were 14 byes in the girls U14 TE qualies (6 in the boys) and 7 byes in the U18 ITF girls qualies (0 in the boys). This week there were 14 byes in the U14 TE girls’ qualies here in Solihull (0 in the boys) and 12 byes in the U18 ITF girls’ qualies in Newcastle (1 in the boys).
The rankings of our top end senior girls have progressed well in the last few years so why are we struggling to fill these draws? Surely questions have to be asked of the IHPCs / HPCs and performance centres as to why there are players training in their centres who are directly and indirectly receiving funding from the LTA are not turning up to compete in the international events on their doorstep in Great Britain. If they’re not willing to travel to places like London, Nottingham and Birmingham are they really committed to playing internationally? I think questions have to also be asked of the coaches working with the players this week who did not advise the 8 British players to sign in as a Lucky Loser – 2 would have got in and even if they had lost they still would have been able to compete in the consolation draw against other main draw players.
Back to our day!! We got back onsite at 3pm to try and train on the clay courts after the TE matches had finished but due to some matches over running there was a bit of a wait. We didn’t sit back and relax though; we were straight onto the field to go through Mia’s acceleration & agility programme before again having a thorough stretch out.
Mia working hard during her movement session
We then waited again to see if the clay would be available but at 5pm we were told that the U12 tournament was running behind so they would be using the clay to catch up with matches. I tried to phone around to get courts elsewhere but everywhere was busy so we decided to have an early dinner and prepare for tomorrow’s match. Many players were waiting around all day getting tired and bored but we managed to still have a very productive day.
Schedule for tomorrow:
(15) Anna Popescu (GBR) (726) vs (q) Mia Smith (GBR) (UNR) – 3rd round on after 9am
