Sweden U18 ITF Grade 4 (week 2), Day 3

Sunday 10th January 2016

It was a very good day at the Fair Play Tennis Centre today and despite Toby not directly qualifying he still made it into the Main Draw by the backdoor!

We were up at 6am this morning and down in the lobby for their ‘early breakfast’ by 6.30am. The ‘early breakfast’ basically consisted of bread, ham, cheese, some yoghurts and some juice but for us it was perfect as we didn’t really want a big breakfast before warming up at 7.30am.

After getting the bus to the tennis centre we warmed up (in the dark!) and then once they eventually turned the lights on we hit from 8-8.40am. It was a good session and once we had warmed up Toby’s groundstrokes and volleys we spent a lot of the time focussing on his serve as he felt it wasn’t quite where it needed to be after the match yesterday.

At 9am Toby went on to face Marko Vejnovic from Sweden who during the warm-up looked very impressive! Both boys started the match well but it was Toby that capitalised on a couple of loose games from Marko and took an early *3-1 lead. Unfortunately Toby lost his serve in the next game and that gave Marko a big boost of confidence that led to the Swede winning the next 4 games in a row to take the set 6-3. The only thing that Toby had really done wrong was miss a little too much in his service games but it was Marko’s high level that ultimately won the set.

The second set went with serve until 2-2* but it was obvious that Toby had really raised his own level from the start of the set and, by the time that he broke to lead *3-2 his stats were an impressive 10 winners and only 5 unforced errors in the 5 games. Toby’s maintained his good form throughout the rest of the set and even though a few unforced errors crept in at the end he still managed to hold on to his serve to take the set 6-4.

The third set mirrored the second with Toby breaking Marko’s serve at 2-2* but the main difference between the second and third sets was the level that both boys were producing was superb. In fact by the time the set got to *4-3 with Toby serving the stats read: Toby: 7 winners and 6 unforced errors, Marko: 11 winners and 10 unforced errors meaning that both players had an aggressive balance of +1. At 5-3* with Marko serving Toby earned 2 match points but failed to convert on either of them and then in the next game Toby was broken after a very inconsistent game. Things were not looking good at *5-6 but Toby held his nerve and his serve to take the match into a final set tie-break and then went on to take it 7-2 to win the match in just short of 2 hours and 45 minutes.

It was a big win for Toby but he very much took it in his stride and as soon as he left the court his attention had already shifted to his last round match.

We had 2 hours rest between matches which gave Toby a chance to get some food, have a stretch and relax before it was time to warm up again for the next match.

At 1.45pm Toby went onto court 2 to play top seed Viktor Thoresson from Sweden in a match that turned out to be quite a strange one! The physical effects of the match this morning on Toby were obvious to see as he struggled with his serve and ended up not holding serve for the whole of the first set. Up until 3-3* that wasn’t really a problem as Viktor couldn’t hold his either but once he did in the next game he went on to take the opening set 6-3.

Viktor then flew through most of the second set with some very good tennis and Toby’s fatigue meant that he couldn’t apply his game like he did this morning. However, at *1-5 down Toby held his serve for the first time in the match and then, out of nowhere, mounted a big comeback to break and hold again to leave him only one break away from levelling the set. Unfortunately Viktor played a very strong service game at 4-5* and went on to take the match 6-3, 6-4.

It was a shame that Toby had played such a long match this morning otherwise I think he would have had a great shot at beating Viktor but full credit has to go to the Swede who played well when it really mattered.

As soon as Toby had come off court the referee told us that there were two Lucky Loser spots in the Main Draw and we would now need to draw them from the 4 players that lost in the last round of Qualifying . . . and who’s name was picked first . . . Toby’s!! There actually turned out to be three Lucky Loser spots so almost everyone got in!

We were both very pleased that he had made it through to the Main Draw even if it was as a Lucky Loser and to be honest I think he deserved it after the way that he fought so hard this morning to come through a really tough match.

Once things had calmed down after the draw Toby showered and changed and then we returned to the hotel to relax before dinner.

Dinner tonight was once again at ‘Epicuré’ but this time we were joined by fellow Brits Jake Hersey & his mum and Josh Rose & his dad. The food was again really good and it was nice to have a group of us there, especially for Toby as he’s probably bored of just having dinner with me!!

During the meal the draw came out:

And after dinner I managed to get the picture of the Christmas present tree that I mentioned yesterday:

Schedule for tomorrow:

Anton Ornberg (SWE) (701) vs (LL) Toby Huffer (GBR) (1064) – 4th match after 8.30am