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

Monday 11th January 2016

Having moved into the Main Draw of the singles yesterday via a Lucky Loser spot it was always going to be difficult for Toby today, especially as he was taking on a player that had won two matches last week 6-0, 6-0 & 6-0, 6-0 and eventually lost in the 1/4 Finals. However, after a very quick 1st set Toby showed the fighting spirit that has got him this far in the event but in the end in wasn’t to be and he went down in 3 sets.

As Toby’s match was scheduled for 4th round on today it meant we could have a more relaxed start and actually get to have a full breakfast before having to leave at 7.10am to get the bus to the tennis centre. Toby then went through his physical warm-up and at 8am we went on court with Jake Hersey to go through their pre-match practice session. Both Toby and Jake were hitting well and even though the 30 minute session seemed to go by very quickly they still got everything done and had time to finish with some practice points.

As soon as we had finished we decided to go back to the hotel for a couple of hours to ensure Toby didn’t get bored sitting around at the club so once he got a ‘not before time’ of 12pm from the referee we headed straight to the bus stop.

At 10.30am I was having a nice little nap in my room when suddenly I heard Toby banging on the door to tell me that the person that he had signed into the doubles with had now let him down and was playing with someone else. Not an ideal situation to be in, especially with only an hour and a half until the sign-in closes but unfortunately it happens all too often at junior tournaments.

We headed straight back to the club and despite having an hour to find a partner I worked out that there were only three specific players that Toby could ask to ensure a place in the top 14 entries (it’s a 16 draw but there are 2 wildcards). One of those players said that he wasn’t playing doubles and Toby couldn’t find the other two which meant that when the clock struck 12pm Toby wasn’t in the draw.

After the farce with the doubles we had a couple of hours to eat and re-focus before Toby went on to face Anton Ornberg from Sweden. Toby played against Anton in doubles in the Luxembourg ITF and, having played him last week in SALK, Jake gave us a bit of background on him too. However, when Toby started the match he found it very difficult to find a consistent level of any kind and 3 double faults in his first service game weren’t the ideal platform to start from!

So the first set went by 6-0 in 21 minutes and at 1-3* down with Anton serving it was looking like it could all be done and dusted in 45 minutes! However, at that stage Toby had a little break-through and managed to break Anton for the first time to get the set back on serve. With that little injection of confidence Toby started to set up more and play like he does in practice; taking the ball on early and looking to move forwards to finish the points at the net. In the first set Toby came to the net 3 times and won 2 out of 3, in the second set Toby came forwards 14 times and won a very impressive 11 out of 14 which helped him to turn the set around and take it 6-4.

The turnaround from 3-1 down was as though someone had actually replaced Toby with a different player and if he could have maintained that level them I’m sure the third set would have been very interesting. Unfortunately once Toby was broken at *1-2 Anton really upped his level and actually only missed 1 ball in the following 3 games whilst hitting 6 winners to take the match 6-0,4-6, 6-1.

The big positives from the match were the way that Toby had dug deep to turn the second set around and that has been something that has impressed me during this week. Every match has been tough and Toby could have gone out in the 1st round of Qualifying like he did last week but his determination saw him come through two close matches over the weekend. If he can develop that attitude further in training over the next 3-4 days then he could do really well in the Czech Republic next week.

Once Toby had seen the physio for a couple of niggles we got the bus back to the hotel and then changed our flights home to tomorrow. We then had a really nice meal with Josh, Jake and parents before getting everything packed up ready to return home in the morning.

Next stop on the ITC schedule is the U18 ITF Grade 4 in Prague which starts on Monday so I’ll be back blogging from Sunday night. In the meantime if you have any questions at all about playing international tournaments or coaching at international events then I’m more than happy to help.