Saturday 2nd November 2013
We had a good start to the tournament today as Zeki produced a good performance to advance through his first round qualifying match.
Officially breakfast didn’t start until this morning at 7.30am but luckily we managed to get in there early so that we could get to the bus stop for the first bus of the day at 7.49am. Unfortunately there is no tournament transport from the hotel to the club this week which means that we’ll need to get the bus each day. That won’t be a problem on weekdays as busses start at 6.30am but on Saturdays and Sundays the first busses aren’t until much later.
We arrived at the club just before 8.15am and the boys immediately went into their physical warm ups before we got on court at 8.30am for our practice session. Zeki was hitting well throughout the session and following the time we spent on court yesterday he looked much more comfortable on the fast surface. The boys ended the session with some point play and then at 9am the matches went on.
As Zeki was scheduled for 3rd match on it gave us a chance to watch his possible next round opponent who played first on today. We watched almost the whole match and then afterwards our attention turned to Zeki’s preparation for his own match which included filling out his pre-match sheet and making sure he had eaten enough before he went on.
At around 11.45am Zeki went on to play Anders Mannerak from Norway. Both plays started a little nervously but it was Zeki that settled down first and took a 3-0* lead after dominating from the back of the court. At this stage Zeki relaxed a little too much which resulted in a few too many unforced errors and suddenly the match was back on serve at 3-2*. Zeki responded well though and fought hard to win the next two tight games before going on to take the set 6-2.
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Zeki serving on the far court during the first set
Once the first set was under Zeki’s belt he became much more confident and dominated his opponent in every game of the second set resulting in him taking the set 6-0. Overall Zeki played a good match and even though the start was a little tentative he soon found the level he needed to get the win.
After the match Alex and I went outside to work on his serve on the clay courts while Zeki cooled down and stretched out. We finished the serving session around 2.30pm and then we all got some lunch at the club.
The plan for the rest of the day was to train from 5-6pm after the last matches had finished but at around 3.45pm some of the courts became available so we went straight on. The first half of the session was spent preparing Zeki for his 2nd round match based on what we had learnt about his opponent from earlier in the day and then in the second half of the session I worked with Alex individually on his game. We then went into the gym at around 5pm to cool down and stretch out to end a good day at the tennis centre.
Dinner tonight was once again at Vapiano and it was even more enjoyable than last night. The highlight wasn’t the food tonight though as Zeki lost at Cheat and had to endure the forfeit of acting like a waiter – he had to go up to a table of four, ask them if they enjoyed their meals before clearing their plates from their table and taking them to the kitchen!!
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Queuing up to order at Vapiano
Schedule for tomorrow:
Jacob Eskeland (NOR) (UNR) vs (8) Zeki Horoz (GBR) (2286) – 2nd match after 10.30am
The winner to play either Peter Anker (NOR) or Peter Kampen (DEN) – 4th match (after rest)
