Saturday 14th May 2011
Two days to go until our first round match in the Delray Beach ITF and everything’s tightening up ready to compete.
We arrived at the Academy this morning at 9am and it was straight into the gym to warm up and go through some movement exercises before we joined Mandy Wilson, the Women’s Tennis Director, and the other main draw girls for our squad session. We spent the first 45 minutes drilling and then Devan played two tie breaks; one against Anna Wierda which she won 8-6 and then one against Daria Sharapova which she won 7-5. She performed well in both tie breaks but really upped her game against Daria and proved to herself that she can compete and beat top 300 players. After all of the other girls were done Devan wanted to stay on and drill some more backhands and by around 11.15am we were done. We then went into the gym to complete some core and band work before heading back to the hotel for some lunch.
Ladder work in the gym
It was quite quiet at Evert’s today as Saturday and Sunday are normally rest days for the Academy players but it was interesting to see how many players still wanted to get on court and do some training even though there weren’t any coaches around. All of the players that did train took it very seriously both on the court and in the gym which was great to see.
As I said yesterday I want Devan to do exactly what she wants to do in these few days leading up to her main draw match and she decided this afternoon that she wanted to hit some more so we headed back out to the Academy. We hit from the back of the court until Devan felt as though she was striking the ball well and then we ended the session with some serves and returns – it’s not about volume anymore, we’ve done that in the last week, it’s now just about tightening up any loose areas and making sure Devan is happy with the way she’s feeling on the court.
This evening Devan headed out to dinner with her Aunt and Uncle who have come down to Boca Raton for the weekend so it was “dinner for 1” for me at Villagio’s Italian restaurant in Mizner Park. The food there is great and tonight it was made even better by eating outside undercover while a huge thunder and lightening storm surrounded the town.
Tomorrow is our final day of preparation so we’re going to join the squad again in the morning before heading over to the tournament site in the afternoon.
