Trinidad & Tobago U18 ITF Grade 4, Day 7

Wednesday 27^th March 2013

It was a disappointing day today as George wasn’t able to change his flights to Barbados so he and Alex had to pull out of their ¼ Final match against the top seeds.

We were up at breakfast at 7.30am this morning and then had to wait around while George and his coach tried to change their flights but by 9am they told us they weren’t able to and would have to pull out of the doubles. It’s very frustrating when players commit to playing in the doubles but don’t tell their partners that they have flights booked before the final’s day but it continues to happen week in week out. In our case George and Eddie tried everything they could but because of the Easter holidays all of the flights to Barbados were very busy.

Once they had told us they were pulling out I decided that we’d have a rest day today and then fly to Barbados tonight to get there early to prepare Alex for qualifying. Alex and Mia agreed with the plan so we spent the next hour packing up and checking out before we headed to Movie Towne to go to the cinema.

Alex made the call to see G.I. Joe in 3D and even though Mia and I were quite reluctant we went with it!! After the film Alex immediately turned to both of us and said “That was pretty good” to which we responded “no it wasn’t!!” It was good fun though and Mia enjoyed wearing her colourful children’s green 3D glasses – she was very disappointed though when she found out that she couldn’t keep them!!

As it was our rest day I relaxed the rules on what food the players could eat so, after lunch we went to Coldstones Creamery for an ice cream and for the first time in Mia’s life she struggled to finish anything with chocolate in it!! As Carlos the local coach would say “that’s going to ride you tonight!”

We then headed back to the hotel to grab our bags and drive to the airport. The traffic was pretty bad all the way but it did give us a chance to take some pictures of the views.

After lots of negotiation at the airport (and sweet talking the check-in staff!) we managed to get on the flight without paying for excess baggage even though we were each 20kgs overweight!

The look on Mia’s face was priceless when she saw we were travelling on a little propeller plane but the early nerves soon faded as we watched some Michael McIntyre during the flight! We had a brief stop in Saint Lucia before landing in Barbados at 10.30pm and then finally got to our new hotel at just after 11am.

Our focus now turns to Alex’s preparation for qualifying which starts on Saturday.