Tobago U18 ITF Grade 5, Day 4

Monday 26^th August 2013

It was a good birthday for Alex today as he got a first round win under his belt and also had a great slice of chocolate birthday cake!

It was an early start for us today as we met for breakfast at 6.15am but it did give Alex a chance to open his birthday card and present from me before he warmed up at the hotel at 7.15am. We then got the 7.45am shuttle bus to the courts and as soon as we arrived Alex went straight on court to hit with Stefan from 8-8.30am. Both players were hitting well and Alex looked very strong from the back of the court and also when volleying.

Once we had finished we had a short break before the opening ceremony of the tournament got underway just after 9am. Much to the player’s delight the speeches were short and after a quick photo call we managed to get away to warm up for 10 minutes before Alex was called for his match.

We knew that Alex was playing against a player that was a little weaker than him, so the main focus was to find a good level of hitting throughout the match and most importantly work on maintaining his concentration. After a poor first game Alex settled down and then started to produce the kind of level that he’d been finding in practice. He raced through the next 6 games with some very aggressive tennis and never let his opponent get into the set.

After a very convincing 6-1 first set Alex continued to stay in control and won the first 4 games of the second set. Even though he was broken in the next game by hitting 4 unforced errors, I wasn’t too disappointed as each mistake was made by Alex trying to either develop his serve or try something different from the back of the court. However, Alex’s focus dropped at 4-1* and the rest of the set became very scrappy. His unforced error count started to increase very fast and the quality of hitting that he had in the first set was no longer there. In the end Alex closed out the match 6-1, 6-3 but as soon as he came off I knew he was not happy with his second set performance. His first words to me were “Can we go straight onto the practice court?” which showed great professionalism and I know that a month or two ago he would have never asked to do that. All it took was 10 quality minutes of hitting before Alex once again found the level that he wanted and we both finished the session happy.

Many players see a win as their overall goal but if you don’t improve or play at a level that you are happy with then it is very important to get back on court so that you do feel ready to play the next round. Alex made a very mature decision to train straight after the match and I believe that shows how much he has developed as a player and a person since he started playing ITF events.

After Alex had cooled down and showered we headed off site to the local shopping mall to get some lunch and, as it was his birthday, we decided to rest this afternoon and go to the cinema. We had hoped to see ‘Wolverine’ but that showing wasn’t until 8pm and as we just missed the start of ‘Red 2’ we had to settle for our 3^rd choice which was ‘The Mortal Instrument’. Neither of us had heard of it before, and to be honest it wasn’t really my cup of tea, but it wasn’t too bad and I’m sure it was better than watching ‘The Smurfs’!!

We got back to the hotel just before 5pm and while Alex went online I decided to have a quick run followed by some very tough hill sprints. We then headed out to Ciao Café for dinner with Stefan and Danielle at 6pm and no birthday would be the same without some quality birthday cake (I just couldn’t believe Alex couldn’t finish his!!).

 

Schedule for tomorrow:

(1) Jean Thirouin (USA) (379) vs Alex Hagon (GBR) (1880) – 2^nd match after 9am

Matthew Foster-Estwick (BAR) & Simon Lewis (BAR) vs (3) Stefan Cooper (GBR) & Alex Hagon (GBR) – 5^th match after 9am (not before 1pm)