TALES FROM THE TOUR
The tennis tour takes players to all corners of the globe all year round so it's no surprise that some crazy things happen out there. In these blogs
Alex gives an insight into the bizarre side of the tour !
Africa: December 2007
It was quite an eventful month
out in Africa, two titles - singles and doubles, a win over a player in
the top 250 and a big ranking rise up to 407 ! But it didn't all
start so brightly......"I headed off to Africa for a 4 week set of events leading up to Christmas. My first event was in Sudan but things could hardly have started worse. When I got there I injured my back virtually as soon as I got off the plane, it was really bad, couldn't even bend down to do my shoelaces ! There was no way I could play, could barely move and it didn't seem to be responding to physio treatment so I was about to book tickets back to Britain !!!
My coach told me to stick it out and see what happened so I thought I'd give it another week. Had to retire in my round 1 match against a wildcard and had physio and massage treatment every day but it got to week 2 out there and the back still wasn't looking good. I wasn't sure whether to play but luckily the guy I drew in round 1 got ill before the match and had to pull out at 2-0 down which gave me more time and 2 more days of physio before playing David Brewer in round 2. By then it was a lot better, I played well, hitting hard and took it 2&2. I then had top seed Mattwe Middlekoop in the quarters, he was on form and had won something like 4 straight futures but I had a lot of chances in that match and should have won, had 3 set points at 5-4 1st set and led 3-1 in the 2nd but ended up losing 7-5, 6-3.
The final 2 weeks were off to Nigeria to try and end the tour with some points ! However, in comparison to Sudan it was just ridiculously hot, so humid and energy sapping. I made the mistake of entering playing doubles aswell in the 1st week. We went all the way through and won the title but I spent too much energy and it cost me in the singles. I reached the semis but against the Moroccan El Almari I had nothing left. I won the 1st set in a tiebreak but had nothing left in the tank after that and went down 6-7, 6-3, 6-1. The courts at the venue were all totally different, I'd been playing on fast courts but in the semis I got a really slow court and he's very fast so it suited him a lot.
The following week, I just concentrated on the singles and it paid off with my first title ! I got El Almari again in the quarters and luckily we got put on a fast one and I just outhit him 6-1, 6-3. In the final I played a really good match against Catalin Gard who was top seed, hitting hard and staying aggressive, didn't give him too much of a chance.
Over there in Benin City they regard the 2nd of back to back futures over there as the most important so the final was a massive event, the govenor was there to do the post-match presentation, about 100 people turned up to watch the match and as soon as I came off the court there were microphones being thrust in my face. The police had to escort me from the venue as there were masses if local people grabbing me, begging for money and I had my prize cheque in my pocket !!!!"