The Irish Open is a tradition at the prestigious and historic Fitzwilliam Lawn Tennis and Squash Club. It certainly shows with the photo frames on the walls. Bjorn Borg, McEnroe and a few other names alongside great squash players with the likes of Barrington, Hunt and Zaman have all been here. The club is enthusiastic to host squash players and we are very welcomed very warmly. A hotel nearby, food vouchers for all players and plenty of friendly people around, the tournament is definitely a treat to play in.
Sunday 10 April - Day 0
It was a 90 minutes flight from Eindhoven and a 20 minutes bus ride to the club. I met up with Joel Hinds on the bus and we caught up with what we had been upto. At the club, the players were gathered together for the qualifying draw and there was a bit of uncertainty around a few last minute withdrawals. The player observer - our very own Campbell Grayson got on the job and quickly sorted it out and th draw was soon done. I drew former Irish champion and ex world no.7 Derek Ryan in the first match.
Back at the hotel, I caught up with the other boys for some amusing chats at dinner. I was sharing with Campbell which was great! We talked for hours in the evening, catching up on things and talking about our plans. It was quite late when we covered the issues at hand and it was bed time.
Monday 11 April - Day 1
Match day is different to most other days and there is always a bit of nervous energy floating around. For me it's essential to be positively stressed and I use it to my advantage. There were a lot of hours to kill before my scheduled match time at 8pm. Campbell and I had a good hit for an hour and were back at the hotel after lunch at the club. I had a good rest and went down to the club a couple of hours early after a snack at the hotel.
The match itself was tense and I felt under a lot of pressure. It doesn't happen much that I come up against a more experienced opponent. Derek put me under a lot of pressure with his ball control and tactics where he kept the pace slow. I felt I was getting dragged into his game and going short too often. We were taking turns to control the rallies throughout the match but my movement was much better. I have been working a lot on all physical aspects and it paid off as I came through 3-1 after a close 4th game.
Tomorrow I am up against the young and supremely fit Finnish youngster Henrik Mustonen. I have played him once before in a 9-11 loss in the 5th at the same venue. I am hungry for revenge and will work on things that I learnt from that match. One thing is for sure that it will be a very VERY hard match - both physically and mentally.
Tuesday 12 April - Day 2
It was an excellent day and I felt great for my match only to produce the strangest performance of my squash career - playing probably my best squash only to reduce to the worst physical condition in a match for no apparent reason.
After a bad start I recovered well and the first game was neck to neck right till the end. Even though I lost the game, I had found my rythm and knew I could take this match. The second game was probably the best game I have ever played. Everything went well and I hit winners all over the court to win the game 11-3.
I took the momentum through to the third and led 3-0. Not sure what happened at that stage but I felt heavy in the whole body and very lethargic. The match hadn't been very tough and I was puzzled as to what was happenning to me. I tried to put it to a side and push hard but it wasn't to be. After that I got 4 points in the whole match and moved awfully to lose the third and fourth without being able to put up much resistance.
Regardless of the reasons, it wasn't my day and I came out second best. It's never good to lose and even worse when it happens in such a mysterious way. It can't be helped now and I can only look to the future. With 6 weeks before the next event, I want to start running and keep working on the fitness. There have been positives as well and even after a disappointing day I feel I have improved on my movement and strength. I need to learn from the negatives and take as much positives as I can from the positives to put together an ideal training plan to take me through.
Down but certainly not out.
.JPG)
