Week 45 - Bratislava challenger - Ross Hutchins blogs for britishtennis.net

goldfish · Futures qualifying

Week 45 - Bratislava challenger - Ross Hutchins blogs for britishtennis.net

Drew · Nov 5, 2007

They won 7-6(4) in the TB....yipee !!!

looking forward to the blog !

helki · Futures qualifying

Drew wrote:

They won 7-6(4) in the TB....yipee !!!

looking forward to the blog !

Good win.

Onwards and upwards.

Drew · Nov 5, 2007

Ross Hutchins Blog - Part 1 (Pre-match)

Sitting here in the Lobby of the Bratislava Challenger hotel preparing to try finish the year on a big high! I know that the higher my ranking is the easier it will be to get into Australia so I'm going to give it my all and more to try conquer the next 3 weeks. Out here with my doubles partner James Auckland 'Aucks' feeling good and confident about this week and the run in to the end of season. Having arrived this morning in Vienna I took an hour taxi ride to see that I had 10 minutes till we practiced. Was good to do as once we realised that we were playing tommorow I needed to get used to the courts and 1 1/2 hrs later I felt much better. Another 45 minutes later would be perfect so that is what we did. A good hot shower and a stretch and I was content with my preparation for tommorows match. Having not been to Bratislava before I didn't know much about the city but Aucks and I suddenly had an urge for some sushi..sushi it was! Fortunately just round the corner was a great sushi bar which we filled up on as we missed lunch due to practice times. Loved it! Anyway going to try get an early night ready for tommorrows match against Slovakian wild card players who hopefully we'll be too strong for! I'll let you know..

Sent our congrats to both Ross and James....looking forward to part 2 !

James · Satellite level

Nice first blog [Thanks Ross.. If you're reading.]

Just to check.. is everybody else only getting coverage of half the court through the Bratislava challenger stream..?

imoen · Admin: Moderator+Tennis Legend

Nice solid win to begin

Great the Hutchins is blogging for us, thanks Drew for sorting it out and Ross for writing it!

goldfish · Futures qualifying

I could see the whole court - camera view from one end, pretty good picture very slightly fuzzy and small screen. Couldn't work out why for the previous match the picture was on the screen on the top right and for Ross and James it was on a different screen in the middle of the page.

Stircrazy · Tennis legend

Sheddie wrote:

You can watch the match live by going to:

http://www.tatrabankaopen.sk/ and click on the www.infonet.tv button on the top right hand side of the screen

If like me, you can't watch it live, the website stores each of the matches as online videos for several days and if you scroll down the page you can find it

Easily the best challenger website around

I'll second that!

Lucky that Aucks & Hutch were on the centre court today. aww

Only trouble is, I can get into the site at work & it was a b-i-g distraction. Thank God they're not back in action tomorrow! ashamed

* Resolution seems fine to me, here at home & at work...

Drew · Nov 6, 2007

Ross Hutchins Blog - Part 2

Hi guys, sitting back down in the same spot as 24hrs ago with a much better feeling to today as we were successful in winning our 1st round! Always a nice feeling as personally the 1st match of the tournament is always the toughest to come through as there are so many factors to getting used to each tournament!
I had one of the best nights sleep last night so when i woke up at 9 this morning I felt so good which is rare when I first wake up as my past room mates know! Coming down to breakfast my doubles partner 'aucks' was sitting patiently waiting for me to join him. After a long relaxing breakfast where we stocked up on goods for the day we headed to the club with match gear raring to go get stuck into the tournament. At Midday on court 2 we hit for 40 mins trying to best prepare for our match on centre court later on that day..we were scheduled for 3rd match from 12.30. A shower and a bit of lunch and we were about as ready as we could have been. With Aucks looking like Rambo but with a blue headband, he was fired up and we started off all guns blazing returning very well which ended up in breaking their serve early in the match and taking the 1st set 6-4. We were playing on the court where the Davis Cup was played 2 or 3 years ago but the atmosphere was different to say the least. In a huge stadium there were maybe only 50 -100 people watching and since we were playing a couple Slovak players we had no support whatsoever. 2nd set we lost some focus and went 0-4 down but came back strong to win it 7-6. Good day at the office but not perfect so we went straight onto the practice court to work on a few things that could be improved. Half an hr later all was good so we took the 18.15 bus back.
Every night aucks and I have a discussion on what we are feeling for dinner and since last night it was my preference i had to give him tonights..he went for Italian which I was ok with.
The Bratislava town centre is suprisingly nice, lovely buildings, very good choice of restaurants, many narrow streets, I guess it could be called a worse version of Venice as the way I'm describing it but without the water! No ice cream on the way home although it was very tempting as the place is right next door, and the variety is some of the best i've come across!
A few phone calls back home to family and girlfriend and that brings me to now..
Its now 11pm and I have an early start tommorow practicing so I'm off to hit the zzzz's.
Catch you tommorow!

wolf · Tennis legend

Phew I beggining to think I was a curse when I started watching the start of the second set, but they came back well. Had to leave at 5-5 but I was confident they would win.

Count Zero · Tennis legend

bratislava, i hope he hasnt seen the film hostel :)

out of interest how do doubles players practice? i know ist a silly question, but to me it isnt quiote the same as singles, wher you tend to find anotehr player and take it in turns to work on something.

Do they find another double paring to hit against?

good blog tho.

Madeline · Admin:Moderator + Tennis Legend

Yes, really appreciated! Thank you Ross, and Drew for setting it up.

wolf · Tennis legend

James and Ross are 3rd on Court 3 today, with play starting at 12:00 GMT. Looks like no live stream then...

Drew · Nov 7, 2007

Ross Hutchins Blog Part 3 : "The Late Night"

Hello everyone! Despite knowing i had an early start in the morning, i stayed up late last night. It was a descion i really regretted this morning when my alarm went off at 7.30! Needless to say, i was extremely grumpy when i met auks for breakfast, but some eggs and croissants put a massive smile on my face! I practised today at 9.00 am for an hour with Auks, Chris haggard, a former top 20 doubles player and his coach scotty. It was a very good session where we worked on very basic serve, volley and returning drills. It was very productive. I felt really stiff today, so i had a long strech to try and make me feel better. Normally I would be able to pop into the physiotherapy room at the national tennis centre in roehampton to get either some treatment or a full massage, which does wonders for my body, but unfourtunatly i do not have the same luxury out here!
The tiredness hit me around midday, so i had a some well deserved relaxation time and a bit if a sleep. I was not impressed with my lunch today...a really rubbish sandwich! Not really what i was looking for knowing i had a long day of practice!

After lunch i practiced for another hour, again with aucks and also with Lovro Zovko, the player who Tim and Jamie took down in the recent Davis Cup tie against Croatia. At tournaments it is always very important to practice against as many different types of players, as it can only improve my tennis! Practice was again followed by another long stretch and a long hot shower!
At about 3 o'clock, once practice was over for the day, we got a courtesy car back to the hotel. The journey was intresting to say the least...a fellow driver decided to do a 3 point turn in middle of busy street..not the smartest of ideas! It was raining hard, which made it hard for our driver to try avoid crashing into the other car ! There was a fair amonut of skidding and sliding done in the process. Understanably, quite a few loud and abusive slovak words exchanged!!

After our car ride home, aucks and I decided to go to the local mall to check it out. Still hungry from my awful lunch, we managed to find a scottish pub, and i had some soup which was lovely. I've been wanting to watch superbad at the movies, but have not had the chance, so when i found out the local cinema was showing it, i was there in a second! I'm so glad i finally saw it..it was so funny! Highly reccommended!

Dinner was calling so off we went back to the same restaurant as last night. A good meal was a neccessity, so a mexican pasta and salami pizza was eaten! It was very tasty!

wolf · Tennis legend

2-1 in the first to the Slovaks. No idea if it is on serve or not.