Monday 7th April 2014
It was a good start to the Easterbowl in Indian Wells today as Katie overcame a tricky opponent to win through to the 2nd round of the singles.
We started the day with an early breakfast before heading over to the club at around 8.30am. Even though Katie’s match wasn’t scheduled until 1pm we only had the opportunity to practice until 10am when the matches started so we decided to warm up at around 8.45am and then hit with Mia Horvitt from around 9.10 – 9.45am. Katie was looking very good in the practice and has continued to build on the work that we did in Carson last week.
After the session Katie and I headed back to the house to have lunch, relax and most importantly get out of the heat while the first round matches started. We then made our way back to the club at 12pm to prepare for Katie’s match and as we got into the car we were greeted by this:
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Hot, hot, hot!!
As soon as we got on site I went straight to the referee’s office to check the situation with the Heat Rule and was immediately told that it had been in since 10am this morning! The Heat Rule is not just based on temperature (but that is a major factor) but it does mean that players can have a 10 minute break between 2nd and 3rd sets where they can leave the court, see the trainer etc. but cannot speak to their coach.
At 12.30pm Katie and I sat down and went through the plan for the match and set specific goals before she went through a thorough warm up. Then at 1pm she went on stadium court 3 to face Alexandra Letzt from California.
The match started with 5 breaks of serve; Katie took the lead three times but on the first two occasions she was broken straight back in the next game until at *3-2 she played a very good service game to hold and take a commanding 4-2* lead. She then backed up her hold by breaking Alexandra and then hit 3 winners in her next service game to take the set 6-2.
Katie built on the momentum that she had created in the first set by braking Alexandra in the first game of the 2nd set and then went on to take a 5-1 lead with some very smart play. Just when it looked as though the match was almost over Alexandra raised her level; she held serve at 5-1* and then after breaking Katie her confidence increased significantly. Katie continued to fight hard and earned a match point at 5-3* but Alexandra played some impressive tennis to peg Katie back to *5-4. Katie responded very professionally to Alexandra’s fight back and, after a close service game, she held to take the match 6-2, 6-4. It was a good win for Katie and she showed a lot of character in that 2nd set, especially as it was very hot on court.
After the match we went straight back on court to work on a few specific areas of Katie game for 10-15 minutes and then it was straight into the gym to cool down and stretch out in nice air-conditioned comfort!
We left site at 4.45pm and went back to the house where Katie went through a good recovery session in the swimming pool. We then had another great meal thanks to Nicki, before settling in for the NCAA basketball Finals followed by watching The Blind Side.
Girl’s Doubles Draw
Schedule for tomorrow:
(1) Usue Arconada (USA) & Katie Swan (GBR) vs Francesca Di Lorenzo (USA) & Sofia Kenin (USA) – Time TBC
