Thursday 9th October 2014
After waiting almost 3 days to play their doubles match the boys finally got on court today but it was just unfortunate that they came up against a very good pair in the opening round.
Due to yet more heavy rain overnight we knew when we woke up this morning that the clay courts would be out of action and that the whole tournament would be moved to the hard courts. We confirmed that with the referee after breakfast and decided that it would be better to stay at the hotel and practice on the hotel court rather than have to fight to get on the one practice court at the club.
With a revised ‘not before’ time of 12pm for their doubles match the boys warmed up in the gym at the hotel and then got on court at 10am for their tennis session. The court at the hotel is surrounded my concrete walls which made an already hot morning even hotter!
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It was a hot one down there this morning!
We stayed on court for around 45 minutes during which time Toby and Nils warmed up every part of their game and then we worked on a few doubles drills to finish. It was very hot on the court and we all agreed that we didn’t want to do too much and get too tired before the match, so at 10.45am we headed back to the apartment to shower and change. We then headed to the club to get some lunch, go through the goals and tactics for the match and then it was a case of sitting and waiting for our court to become available.
After the match before ours went to a 3rd set, Toby and Nils eventually got on court at just before 2.30pm to face top seeds Indra Patwardhan and Arjun Ramakrishnan from India. Both boys were really up for the match and, having done a lot of training for it over the last 4 days, they were looking very confident from the start. After Indra held serve in the 1st game Toby and Nils responded by holding a tight service game on a sudden death deuce point and then, following a strong game, broke Arjun to take a *2-1 lead. The first point of the next game could have been the most important point of the match; Nils put in a good 1st serve down the ‘T’ and Toby crossed really well on the first shot but somehow their opponents managed to scrape the ball back and win the point. After that point the Indians seemed more confident and they upped their games to break Nils, hold serve and then break Toby to take the first set 4-2 (short sets because of all the rain delays and having to play 2 doubles matches in 1 day).
The 2nd set was more one-sided than the first as Indra and Arjun raised their games significantly both when serving and returning to take the set 4-0. Toby and Nils were understandably disappointed with the loss but they did create chances in the first set and were up against two good players who had played together a lot in the past.
As the boys had been training and competing for the last 8 days I insisted that they took the afternoon off completely – no schoolwork, no gym work, just relax and unwind a bit before everything starts again tomorrow for the 2nd tournament.
With that in mind we got back to the apartment at around 3.30pm and then spent the next couple of hours watching the end of “The Inbetweeners 2” and the first half of “Coach Carter” before we headed out to dinner at 6.45pm.
Both boys have been extremely disciplined with what they have been eating all week and so tonight I let them loose on the whole buffet at the Hilton! They didn’t actually go too crazy as they knew they had to train the next day but they did enjoy a dessert . . . or 3!
When we arrived back at our hotel Toby said he needed to go to the cash machine to get some money out but as he put the card in the slot he missed the card reader and dropped his card down a gap in front of it! We could all see the card sitting there but the gap was too small to reach it with our fingers and the hotel staff said we’d have to wait until the bank came along to open the machine. We had no idea how long that would be and I was up for a bit of a challenge so I went to the apartment, got a coat hanger and some physio tap and headed back downstairs. The hotel staff said it was not possible to get it out but after convincing them to let me give it a go I eventually managed to reach the card, stick it to the coat hanger with the physio tape and gentle navigate it back through the gap – a fine achievement if I do say so myself!!
After all that excitement we went back to the apartment to watch the end of Coach Carter and then relax for the rest of the evening.
