Wow, after seven-and-a-half months out, I’m finally back! I spent a month doing physical training in the States and in the last week of that trip I started to hit tennis balls again. I arrived back in England around three weeks ago, hit for a week at home in Yorkshire with my MCTA Group stablemate Steffi Boffa and Jason Torpey and then travelled to Bath to play a $10,000 ITF.
I had agreed with my coach, Dave Sammel, that I would just play doubles in my first couple of tournaments back, to see how my foot would hold out. I entered doubles with Steffi, and we were actually highly seeded, which felt a little odd after being out for so long, and given that I only have four or five months worth of points on my ranking!
Anyway, we had a nice draw in the first round, a couple of young English girls who were unranked. Unfortunately, we didn’t start as well as we had hoped…we went 5-1 down in the first set! Good energy and positive attitudes from both of us allowed us to get into the match. From 5-1 down in the first, we only lost one more game, coming through 7-5 6-1. By the end of the match, we were actually playing pretty well and it felt brilliant to be back on the match court.
The next match was tough – we played Leonie Mekel (NED) and Hanne Skak Jensen (DEN). Steffi and I lost the first set, but fought hard to win the second and then really dominated the third set tiebreak, winning it purely because of our energy levels, 10-3. Our opponents were pretty flat so we just focused on being aggressive and going at them right to the end.
This match gave us a lot of confidence both individually and as a doubles team, because we knew that they were a decent pair and we had to be very positive throughout to beat them. Going into the semi-finals we felt great. We had started to get on a roll and we were both really pumped warming up for the match. Unfortunately after the five-minute match warm-up, our opponents, Briton Jade Curtis and Liu Shaozhuo from China, pulled out. Jade had tendinitis in her foot and judged it too painful for her to compete.
We actually went straight from the match court to the practice court and had a good, long session with Dave. We worked on crossing and quick, close volleys as I felt a little slow reacting to the ball after not having played for a long time. We both walked off the court feeling great afterwards. We both knew it had definitely helped us and couldn’t wait to play the final.
I think our result in the final against Czech pair Veronika Chvojkova and Katerina Vankova proves that the previous day’s practice session was very good… We cleaned them up 6-1 6-1! Winning my first tournament was awesome! It was also the first title Steffi and I had won together, after losing in two finals last year! We realised after the match that we actually have a very good record playing together as we haven’t played that many tournaments with each other.
After doing so well in Bath and getting through each match without any major problems with my foot, I decided that I would travel with Steffi to Jersey and play doubles in the $25000. We both felt really confident, and were looking forward to continuing our roll from Bath. We had a strong start in our first round match, going up 2-0 against Claudine Schaul and Korina Perkovic. Then Schaul called the physio to tape her left wrist, but decided she couldn’t play anymore as she could only hit one-handed backhands.
In the second round, we played Finland’s Emma Laine (who was top 50 before she got injured last year) and Darija Jurak who is also a very good doubles player (close to top 100). The first set was very frustrating, we were a break down most of the time, but we knew we could win with just a few extra balls here and there.
We actually won the first set 7-5, after being 4-5, 0-40! We lost a really tight second set on a tiebreak, but then we came through in a third set breaker 10-4. Again, we showed lots of energy, and made sure we didn’t show any negative reactions during the whole tiebreak. Those two things were our goals for every match. We were so happy to win the quarter-final, it was our first real tough test against high level opponents.
In the semi-finals, we played against French-Italian combo Stephanie Foretz and Maria-Elena Camerin, who have career-high doubles rankings of 33 and 46 respectively. We knew the match would be tough but we still went out and gave it everything. We lost in the end 6-1, 6-4, but there were three sudden death deuce games in the first set which all went their way – it could have been a lot closer.
In the semi-finals, we really noticed how many extra balls they made. They barely hit any unforced errors and made us work so hard to win a game. They kept the ball very deep and also went up the line a few times, so we found it tougher to cross.
It was clear that they were playing at a level above any of our previous opponents from the last two tournaments, and also a level better than 95% of doubles teams you find at Challengers. It was disappointing to lose, but a really good experience – we can see now where we still have to improve to consistently beat girls at the next level. It’s rare to face opponents who both really know how to play tennis in Challengers, so we were lucky to get the opportunity to compete against them this week.
Overall, I’m really happy with the start I’ve had since coming back from my injury. Winning my first six matches in a row was a better start than I ever could have imagined! It will be fantastic when I can really get back into singles week in week out.
I still have some pain in my foot, from scar tissue where I had the fracture, but that should all clear up soon enough so I can start moving 100% again. For now, I will just look to quickly improve my ranking and in a few months I’ll hopefully be higher than I was before my injury – and still climbing.
Fitzy
