Tuesday 27th August 2013
It was a tough day for Alex today as he came up against a good player in top seed Jean Thirouin and, despite a good performance for the majority of the match, he went down in straight sets.
As Alex was scheduled for 2nd match on it meant that we could have breakfast at 7.15am before we headed over to the courts on the 7.45am bus. Alex and Stefan then went through their physical warm-ups between 8.30-9am and then had a solid 30 minute practice session. We knew that a big part of our tactics today would be using variation to keep Jean uncomfortable so Alex focused on that during his pre-match hit and ended the session feeling confident.
We had just under an hour before Alex went on for his match and in this time he completed his pre-match sheet and we discussed again the tactics we would need to implement to be effective today. Alex then went on court at 10.15am to face the American number 1 seed.
After 2 very long games, in which a total of 24 points were played, Alex found himself *0-2 down. He had started well and was competing hard against a tough opponent but he just couldn’t convert the game points that he had. Alex was then broken to Love to trail *0-3 but the score definitely didn’t reflect just how close the set was. It was therefore no surprise when Alex held serve in the next game and then broke Jean to get the match back to 2-3*. Alex continued to get opportunities to get more games on the board but Jean played the big points better and ended up taking 3 out of the next 4 games to take the set 6-3. Alex and I always talk about the winning the important points (notably the 30-30 points and Game / Break points) in games at the first opportunity and in total Alex had 8 of these in the first set and only managed to win 1 of them.
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Alex serving during the tight start to the match
The first 3 games of the second set continued to be just as competitive as the whole of the first set; Alex was fighting hard and producing tennis of a very high level but he just couldn’t get the breakthroughs to get games on the board. Then at 6-3, 3-0 down his head dropped a little and he looked as though his belief was starting to go. As this happened his quality dropped, more cheap unforced errors started to creep into his play and subsequently the final three game of the match went against him very quickly.
Despite going down 6-3, 6-0 Alex produced a high level of tennis for 11 out of the 14 games played and it was only in the middle of the second set that his focus and energy levels started to drop. There were definitely a lot more positives than negatives in the match and it was a great experience for Alex to play a player ranked in the 300s. He now knows what he needs to work on to get up to that kind of level by the end of next year.
We had lunch at the club after the match and then we decided to get the 12.30pm bus back to the hotel so that it gave Alex and Stefan a break from being on site all day before their doubles match. Unfortunately while we were back at the hotel the weather changed and the rain started to fall. It then continued for a few hours and in the end the tournament decided to cancel the doubles for the day.
For dinner tonight we were joined by the Advantage Tennis team from California and due to Ciao Café being closed on Tuesdays we went next door to the Havana restaurant. The quality of the food was pretty good but the portions were small and expensive so I don’t think we’ll be going back there again!!
Due to matches still going on late into the evening the schedule didn’t end up coming out until after 11pm but here it is!!
Schedule for tomorrow:
Matthew Foster-Estwick (BAR) & Simon Lewis (BAR) vs (3) Stefan Cooper (GBR) & Alex Hagon (GBR) – 4th match after 9am, not before 12pm
