Thursday 15th October 2015
It was a disappointing end to the trip today as, after waiting 3 days to play their doubles, Toby and Ondrej ended up going down 12-10 in the 3rd set.
We started the day a little earlier than the last few days and were both up and at breakfast by 8am. We then headed over to SLTA to join the rest of the players in a scrum down for the practice courts! We managed to get on one of the courts at 9.30am and after going through our physical warm-up for around 30 minutes we spent the next hour and a half working hard on Toby’s doubles game to get him ready for the match. Like yesterday most of the session was spent training in half a court but we still managed to get everything done that we wanted to and even had a full court to ourselves at the end of the session to play some points.
At 11.30am we had lunch in Santoré and then waited for Toby’s match court to become available. The match was originally scheduled for ‘not before’ 1.30pm but, like all of the matches in the last two weeks, it was never going to be on-time! We first warmed up at around 3pm as were told that we were going to move and go on a different court, then that got changed and it went back to the original schedule which saw Toby and Ondrej finally go on court at 4.30pm.
Having played Christian Cummings and Rishi Reddy last week in doubles (and winning) and both Toby and Ondrej playing one of them in singles last week (and winning), plus the fact that Ondrej had beaten Rishi yesterday in singles too, meant that the boys were going in reasonably confident! That confidence showed all the way through the first set as Toby and Ondrej played very well and took it comfortably 6-2.
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Toby serving during a very good 1st set
Towards the end of the first set some light rain began to fall and even though it continued through most of the second set it wasn’t hard enough to cause the match to be suspended.
Having served very well in the first set, which saw Toby and Ondrej only lose 3 points on their serves, it was a big surprise when Ondrej was broken in the second set at 2-3*. That break gave Christian and Rishi a massive lift and after Christian held serve to make it *2-5 they looked like a completely different pair to the first set. Toby’s serve was under pressure straight away in the next game and that led to Christian and Rishi getting the break to take the second set 6-2.
At the end of the second set Toby and Ondrej took a toilet break and when they came back it looked as though they’d worked out exactly what had gone wrong in the last set. They were fired up for the Match Tie-Break and raced to a 4-1 lead by displaying the same level that they produced in the first set. The next two points on Toby’s serve were split but at 5-2* it was Christian and Rishi’s turn to raise their games. They went on to win the next 6 points in a row to take a 5-8 lead but Toby and Ondrej kept the points close and ended up levelling the breaker at *9-9 after saving two Match Points. They saved another Match Point at 9-10* with a superb volley from Toby but they couldn’t make it ‘third time lucky’ and eventually went down 12-10.
After the match Toby and I had a debrief to identify the positives and learning points from the match and even though we were both very disappointed to lose in the opening round of the doubles we both agreed that overall the trip has been a success. Before these two events Toby had never picked up any ITF singles points and was ranked around 2300 but after making the 1/4 finals of the singles and semi-finals of the doubles last week he’s now going to be ranked around 1500. He’s also learned a lot about his game and the areas he needs to develop before his next tournament.
For dinner tonight we stayed at the hotel and had the buffet which once again was superb value for around £10. As it’s our last night and as we’ve been very disciplined with what we’ve been eating for the last 17 days we decided to give the desserts a try . . . and I must say they were pretty good!
Thanks to everyone that’s been reading the Blogs over the past 2 weeks and for the messages of support on Facebook. Until next time . . .
