Saturday 10th December 2011
Big day today as Sam played his first ever match abroad and his first ever match indoors!!
After Sam and his aunt had a long day of travelling yesterday they were very pleased when I said that we’d meet at 10.30am this morning giving them a nice lie in. We then drove the short 5 minute journey to the tennis centre and warmed up at 11am before getting on court for Sam’s pre match warm up from 11.30am – 12pm. Sam was noticeably better than yesterday; he looked a lot more comfortable on the indoor courts and much more relaxed throughout the whole session.
After training we had a break for a couple of hours which gave us plenty of time to eat lunch, go through some pre match goals and get Sam ready before he went on for his match just after 2pm.
Sam was taking on 11th seed Calum MacGeoch and right from the warm up he looked really up for the match. Sam held serve in the first game and then broke Calum to take a 2-0 lead but that’s when Calum started to relax a bit more and find his range. As that happened Sam tried to do more with the ball to put Calum under pressure but it resulted in far too many unforced errors. Often trying too hard can cause you to play worse and that was definitely the case with Sam today as he went from 2-0 up to 6-2, 5-0 down. A lot of credit has to be given to Calum who played very well to absorb the pressure that Sam was putting on him in the early games but in the end consistency was the key factor.
At 6-2, 5-0 down Sam was still working very hard and fighting like you would expect of a Spaniard. He then got his reward for the hard work he was putting in as he broke Calum (when he was serving for the match) and then held his own serve (for the first time since the opening game). After Sam held to go 5-2 down Calum started to get rattled and it was obvious he wasn’t happy being on that court anymore! Sam won the first 2 points of the next game but Calum served very well and hit 3 winners from the back of the court to take that game and the match 6-2, 6-2.
It was a fantastic experience for Sam and he was quite pleased with his performance scoring it at a 7/10. We managed to have a thorough debrief about the match via Google Translator (!!) and after that Sam decided he wanted to get back on court for another hour of training to work on the areas we had identified. We had to wait until all of the matches were finished but then we got on court for a great session. It’s always a nice feeling to be the last ones training at the centre but not nice for the staff who had to wait until we were finished before they could close up!!
We had another nice meal with Rob and Selina at the Pub across the road from the tennis centre but the staff were under strict instructions (from both Rob and Selina!) that we had to get our food quickly so that they could get back to the hotel to watch the final of X Factor!!
Tomorrow we are joined by Mia Smith who is in the main draw and Tom Wright and his coach Craig Allen who are staying with us for the week. Sam’s now going to be training hard and will try to sign in for doubles on Monday.
