Thursday 2nd October 2014
Following the British grass court events over the summer and the British junior ITFs it has actually been 4 months since I last travelled abroad for an international event so I was very much looking forward to getting back out to Sri Lanka again this year.
I met Toby Huffer at Heathrow airport yesterday evening and after battling hard not to pay excess baggage we eventually had to give in and pay the £55 fee before they would let us check in!! We boarded the plane just before 9.30pm and just after take-off we were both asleep. We actually only woke up briefly to eat dinner last night and breakfast this morning so I think in total we slept for around 8 hours of the 10 hour flight.
We arrived in a very humid Colombo at 12.45pm and, after we collected our baggage, we were met by our driver who took us straight to our hotel. We then had some lunch and just as we were finishing we were joined by Nils Larsson Regnstrom from Sweden who will be part of the team for the 2 tournaments.
We got Nils settled into our 3 bedroom apartment and then headed next door to the supermarket to stock up on water before heading to the tennis club. For Toby and Nils it was their first experience of riding in a Tuk Tuk – and they both loved it even though it was a bit squashed in the back!
As all of us had flown to Colombo overnight it was important for the boys to have a lengthy physical warm up before hitting. So, from 4.30-5pm, both of them went through some foam rolling, dynamic stretches, mobility work and sprints before we got on court. We then had a good hour of training on the hard courts (because the clay were still wet from rain during the day) and despite the humidity being very different from Sweden and England both boys worked hard throughout. We probably would have stayed on court for longer but by 6pm the sun had set and the huge bats were out so we decided to call it a day!
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Toby and Nils getting used to the conditions at the tournament site
After the session we headed back to the hotel to stretch, unpack, relax and get ready for dinner.
We were joined at dinner by Nils’ mother, father and sister and even though there was a bit of a delay in the food arriving, when it did it was very good! Then at 9pm we had another short trip to the supermarket to get some fruit and some snacks before heading back up to the apartment to relax.
Last year the two events here were really good and I think it’s going to be a lot of fun working with Toby and Nils over the next couple of weeks.
