Tuesday 10th May 2011
Another great day’s training today as we spent the whole day at the USTA Headquarters / Chris Everts Tennis Academy and got involved with all the players and coaches there.
We were told yesterday that we might struggle to get a court before 11.15am as every court is either taken with the Academy programme or with the USTA programme so our plan was to get there for 9.30am to warm up and if we could get on then great, if not we’d hit the gym until one freed up. When we arrived we went straight into the gym to warm up on the bike first followed by completing all of our dynamic stretches – the coaches there were again fantastic and basically said we could use whatever we wanted! When we were all warmed up and ready to go we headed out and Carlos Zapata, the academy programme director, pointed us immediately in the direction of an empty court. We started the session just after 10am but it wasn’t long before we were asked if we wouldn’t mind moving a couple of courts down as Chris Evert was about to come on that court to do a lesson! As it’s her academy we thought we’d move down and let her have the show court!!
Another beautiful day in Boca Raton!
The session was going well but after about 45 minutes of aggressive hitting Devan’s wrist started to hurt so we took a break and iced it. As we were resting the girl from yesterdays video started training on the court next to us; her intensity and focus was again very good even when the first 15 minutes of the session started with her using Mini-Red, Orange and Green balls (oh, we also found out that she’s just turned 13 years old in January and has already had main draw wins in ITFs!). As Devan was planning on playing points in the afternoon we decided to give the wrist a rest and hit the gym. We completed a very tough 35 minutes on the bike followed by some core and injury prevention exercises. By this time it was around 12.15pm so we showered and changed and headed to the supermarket for lunch.
View from the bike!
Can you see us in the mirror?!
At 2.15pm we warmed up again, loosened Devan’s forearm and wrist up and then tested it out with some light hitting. She felt ok to play so at 3pm she joined in with the Academy to play a practise match against Anna Wierda. Anna was at Daytona Beach where she lost in the second round main draw and she played Plantation this week but lost in the last round qualies. It was a competitive match with Anna taking the first set 6-1 mainly down to Devan struggling with consistency but at 3-1 down in the second Devan turned a big corner and found a great balance between aggression and consistency to win the next 4 games to lead 5-3. Anna then upped her level and put more pressure on but Devan played a very strong but solid game to take the set 6-4. We decided to call it a day there as Devan’s wrist was starting to get a little sore so we iced it again before hitting the gym again to cool down on the bike (I think Devan’s sick of that bike now!) and then have a very thorough stretch out.
We ate tonight at Chipotle and even though the food was still “legit” the servers were being very tight with their portions so we weren’t best pleased! To add to it my burrito completely fell apart as it split at the side and then the bottom completely fell out so Devan had a good laugh at me trying to eat it in a civilised way!!!
Back to another full training day tomorrow and hopefully another match in the afternoon.
