Sunday 4th March 2012
It ended up being a brief visit to Tipton this week as Dave had a tough first round match with fellow Riverside Academy player Sizya Kivanda.
We left Dave’s house at 8.10am for the 40 minute journey up the M5 to Tipton and then went through our physical warm up from 9-9.30am. Initially the plan was for me to hit with Dave for his pre-match warm up but when we went on court there was another player looking for someone to hit with which meant that I could give Dave 100% of my attention without having to worry about getting a ball back! Dave hit very well for the 25 minute session and then we had time to talk through the tactics for the match and get a light bite to eat before he went on after the first round of matches.
Dave started well and held serve in the first game despite being *0-40 down before going on to break and hold to take a 3-0 lead. Sizya then had a comfortable hold and continued his momentum to break Dave in the next game with some solid tennis from the back of the court. Dave didn’t let the break affect him and responded well breaking straight back and then holding his own serve to take a 5-2 lead. It was then Sizya’s turn to respond well and after holding at 5-2* he broke Dave and then held again to level the set for the first time at *5-5. Dave then produced his best game of the match which included 3 aces to go 6-5 up but Sizya again played a solid game to take it into a tie-break. The tie-break was very close until 3-3 but then Sizya played 4 great points in a row to take tie-break 7-3.
You could tell that Sizya’s confidence was on the rise after he had fought back from 5-2 down in the first set and he continued to up his level in the second set as he raced to a 5-0 lead. Dave played a good service game to hold at *0-5 but Sizya held serve well to take the match 7-6(3), 6-1.
Dave was understandably disappointed with the result having lead 5-2 in the first set but from my point of view there were lots of positives to take from the match and his level was much better than when I saw him last year in Bosnia. We’ve now got the whole week to work together, including the British Tour event in Sutton, before we travel to our next Futures event at the end of the week.
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