Sri Lanka U18 ITF Grade 5 (week 1), Day 7

Saturday 10th October 2015

It was a disappointing end to the first week as Toby and Ondrej lost in the semis of the doubles in the morning and then we waited 5 hours for Toby to go on for his first round Qualifying match but a storm came over just before he went on and play was suspended for the day!

We started the day with breakfast at 8am and then headed over to SLTA at 9am to watch Ondrej play his semi-final of the singles against Rishi Reddy (who beat Toby in Qualifying last year). After Ondrej took the first set convincingly we decided to warm up and get on court so that we had enough time to go through Toby’s pre-match hit as well as work on some doubles specifics that we identified from the 1/4 final yesterday. We trained for just over 30 minutes which gave us enough time to have a break and get prepared before the semi-final went on court at 11am.

Toby and Ondrej’s opponents were only confirmed this morning as they had to finish their 1/4 final match from yesterday. The match was suspended due to bad light at 6-3, 6-6 but when it restarted today Hung Minh Huynh from Vietnam & David Nguyen from America took the tie-break to seal the win.

When the match started I felt as though Toby and Ondrej had a slight edge over their opponents but after two Sudden Death Deuce games in the opening two games it was obvious that it was going to be a very tight match. At *1-2 Toby’s serve was broken despite him making 5 out of 6 first serves and from there Hung and David won the next 3 games in a row to take the set 6-1. The scoreline suggests that it was a very comfortable set but in reality 3 of the 7 games went to Sudden Death Deuce and another 3 games were decided by just 2 points.

At the end of the set Toby and Ondrej took a toilet break and when they returned they seemed to have a bit more of a spring in their step. At *1-1 Toby once again found himself in trouble on his serve but pulled out a couple of big first serves to come back from *15-40 down and then they took the game on a Sudden Death Deuce point. Hung then held serve to level the set again but in the next game Ondrej was broken and once David held to make it *2-4 it looked as though it was going to be a massive ask for our boys to fight back. In the next game Toby served the best game that he had in the whole tournament and suddenly it seemed as though the momentum was starting to shift a little. At 3-4* with Hung serving, Toby and Ondrej played some good returning points and raised the energy they were showing on the court which started to put pressure on their opponents. That led to Hung’s serve being broken and the set was once again levelled. The next two games were very close and both actually went to Sudden Death Deuce points but unfortunately they didn’t go our way and Hung and David ended up taking the set 6-4.

It was disappointing to lose a close match but it was still a very positive week for Toby who made his first ITF singles 1/4 final and first ITF doubles semi-final. Our attention had to quickly turn to the next tournament as Toby only had 4 hours from when the doubles finished to when he was scheduled to play his first round qualifying match!

We got some lunch in the Italian restaurant at the club and then spoke to the referee over at SSC who said there was a delay in some of the matches and that Toby would now not go on until at least 5pm.

At around 2.30pm we headed over to SSC and even though the cricket club is one of the best in Sri Lanka the facilities in the tennis club aren’t as good as at SLTA. There isn’t a restaurant or a player’s room and there also isn’t anywhere that’s air-conditioned so we might find ourselves heading back to SLTA between matches next week.

After waiting at the club for 3 hours in bright sunshine we were suddenly engulfed by thick dark cloud and it looked as though a storm was about to hit us. The cloud passed over the club and even though it looked dark enough to need the floodlights on the rain seemed to be holding off. That was until Toby said “I think it’s missed us” and 10 seconds later the rain came pouring down!!

Play was soon suspended for the day and we headed back to the hotel in a Tuk Tuk whilst trying not to get soaked!

Whilst Toby relaxed in the apartment I hit the gym for an hour and then it was time to get stuck into the buffet again for dinner. The quality of the food at the hotel is very high and now that we’ve made friends with all the chefs they are happy to make us pretty much anything we want! Just a shame we have to avoid the desserts!!

Schedule for tomorrow:

(3) Toby Huffer (GBR) (2306) vs Gaurang Gaurang (IND) (UNR) – 2nd match after 10am

Winner to play again in the afternoon not before 2.30pm