Sri Lanka U18 ITF Grade 5 (week 1), Day 4

Wednesday 7th October 2015

It was another positive day today at the Sri Lanka Lawn Tennis Association even though we didn’t actually get to complete a whole match!

The day started with a thorough debrief of yesterday’s singles match in the apartment before we headed down to breakfast at around 9.30am. Toby was feeling much better this morning and having not eaten much for the last two days he set about destroying the buffet breakfast!

Once we returned to the apartment we got an update from the tournament to say that due to rain overnight the schedule for the day had completely changed and from today onwards the tournament would now be on the hard courts. That was a little disappointing but for the last three years they have struggled to get the tournament completed on the clay courts due to it being the rainy season so it was probably a wise decision to do it today before there was a backlog of matches.

As the tournament was now on the hard courts we could use the court at the hotel rather than have to fight for a practice court at the club, but the only problem was that the court at the hotel gets booked up quickly. We went down to the court at about 11am but after going through our warm-ups we were told that it was booked from 11.30am until 2pm. We then headed straight to the club and managed to get on a court there for an just over hour which gave Toby some very valuable time on a surface that he hasn’t hit on yet this trip. It was definitely the hottest training session so far and even though we spent most of the time on a half court, due to sharing with two other players, we still managed to work on specific areas of Toby’s game to prepare him for his doubles match.

After the session we went over to court 4 to watch Toby’s next round singles opponent and then went to the on-site Italian restaurant for a well-deserved lunch.

During the next couple of hours we watched some tennis and tried to stay out of the sun while keeping an eye on how the match was going on court 3 as that was the match court for Toby’s doubles. At around 4.30pm Toby and Ondrej had a light hit for 25 minutes to warm up for their match and then at just after 5.15pm they took to the court to take on Avindra Perera and Vibudha Wijebandara from Sri Lanka.

We didn’t know a huge amount about the Sri Lankan pair but unlike many Wildcard pairs we knew that these guys were going to be anything but a pushover! The Sri Lankan’s held serve to love in the opening game before Ondrej served very well to level the set at 1-1. Our boys then found a good level in their returning game to break Vibudha and with that they relaxed a little more and started playing some very good doubles. At *2-1 Toby struggled a little with his serve but focused well to hold to ‘Sudden Death Deuce’ and from there they won the next 3 games in a row to take the opening set 6-1.

By this time it was around 6pm and it was already starting to get quite dark but the boys played on and soon found themselves in a bit of trouble! Toby was broken in the opening game and at the change of ends at 0-1* the umpire said that there would only be one more game played before it was suspended for the day. Toby and Ondrej played a much tighter game and after saving a game point they played a very good ‘Sudden Death Deuce’ point where Ondrej hit a great return and Toby crossed sharply to finish the volley – and with that the match was suspended at *1-1.

After the match Ondrej’s coach and I had a quick chat with both boys and then we headed straight into the restaurant for dinner. We had another good meal and then at around 7.30pm we got a Tuk Tuk to take us back to the hotel.

Schedule for tomorrow:

Toby Huffer (GBR) (2265) vs (Q) Vishnu Puyalraj (IND) (UNR) – 4th match after 8.30am

Toby Huffer (GBR) & Ondrej Styler (CZE) vs (WC) Avindra Perera (SRI) & Vibudha Wijebandera (SRI) – TO FINISH – 6th match after 8.30am