St. Vincent U18 ITF Grade 5, Day 4

Tuesday 20^th August 2013

Despite a close loss today in the 2^nd round of the singles, Alex produced another good performance and those kinds of matches help enormously to build confidence.

Alex’s request yesterday to play first on today was granted so we were up early for breakfast at 6.30am and then walked over to the club just after 7am. Yesterday, during Alex’s first round match, we noticed that there was a cow very close to the back of the court and today while we were warming up it was back again. Stefan decided to name her Daisy and also help her with a bit of breakfast!

 

 

Alex and Stefan had a good warm up for 30 minutes and even at 8am in the morning the temperature was really starting to heat up!

After half an hour break, during which Alex completed his pre-match sheet and we talked through tactics for the match, he stepped back on court to face 6^th seed Jesse Ruder-Hook from America. We had watched Jesse play yesterday so knew exactly what to expect and during the first 5 games Alex stuck to his game plan and executed very well. He raced to a 5-0* lead and it looked as though the tall American didn’t know what had hit him! The next two games were much closer as Alex started to make a few more errors but after a 24 point game at *5-1 Alex held serve to take the first set.

The first two games of the second set went with serve but I got the feeling that Jesse was starting to find his range a little more. After Alex then  hit 3 unforced errors at 1-1* it gave his opponent a big boost and Jesse went on to take control of the set winning the next 4 games in a row including hitting 4 unreturnable serves while serving for the set at 5-1.

After both boys went for a toilet break it was Alex that came out firing at the start of the third set; his energy level were high, he showed great fight and determination and found the same form that he had in the first set. Alex held then broke to lead *2-0 but then a poor service game allowed Jesse to get back into the match. That break of serve increased Jesse’s confidence a lot; he stepped up more and took the ball on hitting 11 winners in the next 5 games whilst serving very well. Despite a great first set and patches of very good tennis in the third set Alex eventually went down 1-6, 6-1, 6-2 in just under 2 and a half hours.

Like yesterday the big positives were that Alex is producing his high training level in matches against players that are much bigger and older than he is. Now our goal is to work to maintain that level throughout the duration of each match and if he can do that then there is no reason why he can’t be making the later stages of these events.

Once Alex had cooled down and stretched out we went back over to court 4 to watch Mia take on Ryan Peus from America. Mia fought hard throughout but Ryan played a very smart match and went on to win 6-2, 6-3. After the match Alex and I went back to the hotel to have some lunch and then together we planned the next few days of training before we fly out to Tobago on Friday.

This afternoon Alex went through his upper body strength and conditioning programme and then we decided to have a recovery swim over to Young Island. It was a really nice swim over but unfortunately just as we were within metres of the sandy beach I put my left foot down and stood on a Sea Urchin who didn’t take too kindly to it and left dozens of its spines in my toes and heel!! After getting some treatment on the island we took the water taxi back and then I spent the next hour with my foot in a bucket of vinegar!

After dinner I was back in the vinegar again much to the disapproval of Stefan and Alex who were sat next to me holding their noses while we watched ‘The Impossible’ on DVD. It was an astonishing film which is based on the true story of a family caught up in the Tsunami in Thailand in 2004 and it really put into perspective the pain I was going through with some spines in my foot!