Katy Dunne wins TE U14 Singles - 1st International title

Hi All,
This is the final update from Reykjavik, Katy Dunne came to win the Girls Singles Final 6-3,6-4 against Sophie Watts (GBR). Katy handled herself well in the final having dealt with pressure of being seeded No1 and playing a fellow Brit in the final.The score did not reflect her dominance (despite losing the 1st 7 out 8 points,nerves!) as she won 4 games in a row in 1st set (2-3 down) and was leading 4-1 in the 2nd (lost concentration!) eventually taking at the 3rd match point!
Today was a double celebration as it was Dean birthday as well which rounded off a great day!

Iceland Tennis Europe Trip - June 2008

19th June
Just a quick update on results so far. Katy won today 6-0,6-0 (french girl Codino) and is into the semi´s
she´s playing a swiss girl Eggenberger tomorrow at 9.00am(has a good chance). She´s also won in doubles (Codino again! and some russian girl 6-3,6-0 and is through to the final of girls doubles tomorrow is the final.Dean is in the final of the doubles with Jamie Malik won today 7-5 in the 3rd epic match against a swiss boy and boy from Liechtenstein . Playing the final tomorrow against 2 british boys Colautti and Throm-Jones. And finally Dean is in the final of consolation event in singles.

Good news so far ,they are playing well and long may it continue!


Hi All,
17th June - Greetings from sunny Iceland, I mean sunny also because it doesn´t get dark here at all!
Both Dean and Katy won there respective 1st round matches (sorry Katy 2nd round had a bye seeded no1!) . Dean 6-0 6-0 against an Icelandic player easy match as it suggests. Katy beat an austrian girl 6-0 6-1 played well and didn´t let girl get into the match. Dean then lost to 2nd seed from Slovakia Sipos (TE ranking 126)3-6, 6-2 , 6-4 . 2.5 hour epic he fought hard 4-2 up in the 3rd just made too many errors off the backhand side on crucial points. He did save 6 match points! Was 0-40 4-5 down after serving 3 double faults! He finished at 10.30 at night (sorry at day!) there is 2 courts and a shed like a portacabin for facilities and no WC! I froze!
Today they are playing doubles (both last round of matches again!I hope it´s not a 10.30 finish!) and Dean is playing a consolation match this afternoon .

Bye for now, I will keep you posted!

Phil Hill

Easterbrook Through To Semi Final's

Hey!
Another tough day at the office for Lereesa today. She was up against Paula Konia from Poland who upset the number 3 seed yesterday!
Lereesa had a very solid start making life difficult for Konia, she was 3-0 up hitting to a great length and forcing a lot of mistakes from her opponent. Konia started to raise her game and dictated a few more of the points but Easterbrook was determined not to let Konia back into the match and closed out the set 6-2.
Everybody who was watching thought there was still alot more tennis to be played in this match and they were right as Konia went into a 2-0 lead after her 15 minute toilet break at the end of the 1st set! Lereesa regained her concentration though and the momentum as she went into a 3-2 with an impressive display of accurate serving and aggressive returning.
Then at 3-2 40-15 up ready to ease away from Konia the umpire made an awful call to over rule a forehand winner from Lereesa and then a no call from the umpire to take it back to deuce! Just as quickly as the obsenities flew out of Lereesa's mouth she found herself 3-5 down!
However she regained her composure to level the score at 5-5 but after losing a closely fought game she had to try and push the set to a tie breaker! Which she did with a very solid service game.
So level again at 6-6, Lereesa had a very determined look in her eye at this point and came up with a unbelievable forehand angled passing shot to which Konia just dropped her racket and held up her hands and started to shout at her coach! (My polish isn't great but think it was something along the lines of how the hell did she do that!) Lereesa raced into a 4-1 lead taking every opportunity that came her way in the rallies to attack.
Lereesa then closed out the tie break 7-3 and to be honest never really looked like losing the tie break or the set for that matter as she played with great courage and determination today.

So its a rest day tomorrow as she prepares for her semifinal against number 5 seed Maria Meliuk from Belarus on saturday..
More soon!
Adios amigo's!!
Pedro.

Hiya, last blog from france.

Day 3 Claudia vs a tough french player. Claudia came out all guns blazing and may have played the best set of her life. Aces, drive volleys, forehand winners!!!!!

However this play made Busson step up her game and start to make more balls. her serve and volleying game was superb and won her many points. Claudia loses a tough 2nd set 6 1. Third set all tp play for. Level at 1 1, a 10 minute game occurs. Busson takes it and takes the momentum with her. All over 6 1 in the 3rd to Busson.

Day 4 Katy Dunne steps onto the doubles court with a fellow brit Katy Millar. Through a tough start with the french umpire making a fatal scoring error the girls find themselves 5 3 down instead of 4 4. However they showed their fighting spirit and got the next game to 5 4 with some huge smashing from Katy. However big serving from the french pair made them take the set 64. Girls started well and had points for 4 2 but again the french pair got their gloves on and began to fight; unfortunately fought to victory!!!!

Game set match the french. Umm not doing too well against the french!!!

Day 5 Katy gets a bye into the 2nd round of the main draw. Her opponent, yep you have guessed it is another french opponent. Wallis Vitis.

Vitis, strong lefty who finds a way to get another ball back in the court and started quickly that Katy was 4 1 down before she knew it. Great couple of games with solid serving and attacking play brought Katy back to 43. Again few errors from Katy and some tough rallies let Vitis take the 1st set 6 3.

2nd set tied at 22 with katy having a point for 3 2. Katy was fighting, digging her heels in, trying to get one over on Vitis. Too tough fro, the french girl and despite a 20 minute game to keep Katy in the match she lost and Vitis took it 63 63.

Tough tournament against metnally tough and solid french players. The girls have learned a lot and will now go home and put it into prqctice.

All for now
Ji



Jemima Hayward
TE Manager
07970815893

Quarter final Spot For Easterbrook

Lereesa started her Spanish ITF Grade 3 yesterday, She played a girl ranked 230 in the world from Hungaria Vinds Lukacs. Within 10 minutes Lereesa found herself 1-4 down in the first set, but managed to dig in her heels and started to fight her way back into the set and found herself serving for the set at 5-4, she held her nerve and serve to close it out 6-4!
Phew! Was exactly what Lereesa was thinkin and soon found herself 1-5 down in the second set! However the girl from Hungry was not so casual this time around, although Lereesa managed to claw back to 3-5 Lukacs won the set 6-3.
So it was then into the third set! Was a very nervy first 6 games with neither of the girls playin the sort of tennis they are capable of and we were tied 3-3 this was a long deuce game which Lukacs won and then broke serve to lead 5-3, just as she thought the Easterbrook wheels had fallen off she served three double faults and missed a short forehand that didnt even make it anywhere near the court! The momentum had changed and Easterbrook made some fantastic hustle's to level the score at 5-5! Again the Hungarian served another double fault and went bazerk at the crowd that had started to form at the back of the court! It was then that Lereesa started to be more aggressive when her opportunities came and dictated a few more of the points alongside some of her fantastic defence, she then closed out the match on her first match point to win the set and the match 7-5!!
It was not the most confident display of tennis but the fighting qualities Lereesa showed were admirable and was a great match to come through.
She then played this morning against fellow British girl Jo Horne who has been enjoying some very good recent domestic results and looked very confident in her first round yesterday.
However Lereeesa set her stall out early recognising and being effective off anything short that came her way and also being very consistent from the back off the court, Lereesa took the first set with ease 6-2.
Confidence then flowed as she ran into a 5-2 lead in the second set, Just as it looked as if Jo was throwing in the towel, she hit a string of winning returns and then first serves to take it to 5-4 Easterbrook! However Lereesa had no interest in letting this match go on any longer and closed it out at the second time of asking. So it finished 6-2 6-4.
So this puts her through to the quarter finals tomorrow against a highly ranked Polish girl.
So more tomorrow folks!
Pedro.

Tennis Europe - France trip "jemima's girls !"

U14 Tennis Europe Poitiers, FranceDay 1 Liberty Crawford took down a french girl today in 3 sets in her 1st qualifying match. Great comeback in 3rd set after losing the 2nd. Lib is due to play another french girl late this evening. Bring it on Claudia Marsala scared her opponenet so much that she pulled out. Her conquest for qualifying starts tomorrow. Both Claudia and Lib have to go through 5 rounds to qualify. All for now. Ji

Hey sorry for the late blog!
A big well done to the following who competed and fought hard in the nottingham open junior tournament in very adverse conditions!
Jake Ridgley, WIlliam Humphrey, Tom Miller, Mike Patch, Stuart Pugh, James Gammel, Liberty Crawford, Claudia Marsala, Alice Patch, Lereesa Easterbrook, Owen Richards, Heather MCneil.
Special mention to Heather and Stuart, Heather won the 16 and under doubles title with Charlotte Phillips, and Stuart was runner up in the under 16's singles narrowly losing out to Chris Simpson.
Pedro!

Tarbes 2008

Tarbes 2008 - Grade 1 U14 Tennis Europe Event

Katy Dunne, Claudia Marsala and myself went off to Tarbes, France for a short trip to train, watch some world class tennis and to get a feel for the standard in their age group worldwide.

The tournament was held indoors, not normally an indoor tennis centre, but for the rest of the year is actually used to hold cattle markets!!!

It was a great oppurtunity for the girls to see the standard of players ranked top 10 in Europe and some ranked in the world U18. It was a great motivating tool for the girls as they saw that they are not too far away from really competing with their peer group. katy had even beaten a girl that was in the tournament.

The girls practised charting matches, reviewed the stats, socuted players because they will be playing them soon.

Big difference between our players and the worlds best was a great intensity around each ball and between points, strong mental attitude and disciplined before and after matches.

In France there are tennis courts everywhere...each village normally has at least 1 court. We found a nice small village with two hard courts, 2 clay courts and a wall!! Therefore each day we managed to get around 3 hours on court to train (trying to beat the coach) and an hour or two of fitness...

The girls also practiced their french because the only way to order food or drink was in french otherwise they went hungry!!!!

A great trip and the girls came back buzzing and feeling very motivated!!!

Coach Hayward

Career High Ranking For Lereesa!

Congratulations to Lereesa Easterbrook after her recent results in Tunisia her Junior world ranking has moved up from 187 to a career high of 169! She is now ranked number 4 in GBR on the itf ranking list!

Tunisia Semi Finals - Lereesa Easterbrook

Last Tunisia update for you all, they won their doubles semi against 2 russians one of who got a telling off from her mum after the match!They were arguing all the way through! 6_4 7_6 they were 5 love down in the second set! Saved a total of 11 set points! Unbelievable.Then unfortunately they lost the final 2_6 7_6 0_6 to a couple of ukranian girls, So thats it from tunisia we fly back sunday so will catch up with you all during the week, ciao for now.

Ariel Masters Girls U14

Katy Dunne had a great 1st round win at the Ariel Masters U14 today at Roehampton, winning in 3 sets

Brugeras Tour - Spain

Halton Junior tour to Spain (Brugeras) 2008.

We had a fantastic, energised, hard working week. Myself, Hutch and Phil took 12 players aged between 9 to 12 years old. The players from Halton are county and national standard and were playing amongst academy players from all over the globe.

We arrived in Barcelona, with all passports in check and all players ticked off and ready to go. Unfortunately the sun was not out and did seem like we had flown back into England. But hey the players could create their own heat on the court!!!!

Tuesday/Wednesday/Thursday the players were playing tennis for 3-4 hours. We had 4-5 spainish coaches and our players got to experience the Spainish way!!!!! Everyballl drills, the X drill, everyball drill, X drill, everyball drill (they like repitition!!!). Our players were starting to realise that playing on clay is not easy, it is physically demanding and we had a quite a few tired bodies after each day.

Wednesday we woke up to rain soaked courts. We therefore had to play in an indoor wooden floor. Bit of a change from a slow clay court but at last the kids learnt to adapt to different surfaces quickly which they will have to to at various tournaments. Myself and Hutch decided to be drill sergeants that day and got the kids to sprint, run, jump, and do crab runs (my favourite).

Thursday our players got to play some matches. We tried to create some dual matches and to see if any of the players would break under the conditions. No -one broke and everyone seemed to enjoy sliding on the clay and trying to beat their teammates!!! Scott and Toby match of the day, toby came out on top this time!!!!!

Fitness each day consisted of laps (endurance, stretching, sprinting, core work, press ups etc etc). We also added our own fitness regime. If the players were not acting profssionally (i.e arriving on time, remembering all their equipment, leaving their court without their equipment (umm tops lying about, racket bags left!!!), asking silly questions (for example can i take my jumper off), not putting their tracksuit on after they have played. etc we made them run laps around the academy. Probably an avergae of 7 laps a day....but at least they learned and got fitter!!!!

The trip was a huge success and the kids came back with real knowledge about how to play on clay, how hard they can actually work and getting use to being responsibe without their parents help.

Bring on next year!!!!

Jemima