Friday 13th May 2011
After a day and a half rest we were back on court today, the wrist held up and we had two great training sessions with the team at the Evert Tennis Academy.
We were in the gym just after 9.15am and once we had completed our warm up we were out on the running track to complete some specific movement work before going through some 5 second on / 20 second off energy system development work. We then started our on court session at 10am and it wasn’t long before Devan was back up to the level that she found earlier in the week and the huge plus was that her wrist was feeling much better. We spent most of the session working on Devan’s level from the back of the court but we also worked on her stability when coming forward and finished the session with lots of volleys. We decided not to serve this morning and to ice the wrist to make sure it was up to the pressure of playing points in the afternoon.
This week the USTA have given us breakfast vouchers for each morning but as we’ve already bought cereal we decided to use the vouchers to buy sandwiches from the restaurant and save it for lunch. Problem was the car gets pretty hot during the day so by lunch the sandwiches weren’t looking the best! It was quite nice to have melted cheese with my ham sandwich though!!
After lunch we warmed up at 2.45pm and the matches again started at 3pm. We didn’t catch the name of the girl that Devan played but she was the strongest player that Devan has faced on the trip so far and started the first set unbelievably well. The set was over in 30 minutes as the girl took everything on and hardly made an unforced error to take the set 6-2. In the second set Devan found a much better depth and managed to stay with her opponent for longer in the rally; this usually ended with Devan getting a shorter ball that she could attack and either win the point from directly or set herself up with volley to finish the point on the next shot. The girls exchanged a few breaks but at 6-5 Devan played a great returning game and took the set 7-5 – it was definitely the best she has played, competed and focused since we’ve been away so we were both very pleased. We then headed into the gym to cool down on the bike and then the foam roll came out to put us both through some pain!!
Devan in action this afternoon
Tomorrow we’re joining in with the Evert Academy players for a squad at 9.45am and depending on how Devan’s feeling about her game we’ll probably reduce the hours on court over the weekend to make sure she’s really fresh for her first match on Monday.
