|
Sunday, 05 April 2009 09:46 |
 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 stablemate Stefy Boffa and Jason Torpey and then travelled to Bath to play a $10,000 ITF.
I had agreed with my coach, Dave, 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 Stefy, 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). Stefy 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.
|
|
Read more...
|
|
|
Sunday, 14 December 2008 20:21 |
|
 Tennishead: Gotta love modern technology, eh? OK, we’re thinking of a question…
Anna Fitzpatrick: Haha… a parcel just arrived!
Tennishead: OK, that can be our first question… what’s the parcel?
Anna Fitzpatrick: Good news… it’s for me! Bad news… it’s the Sony Ericsson WTA Tour 2008 year-end player mailing, whatever the heck that is!
Tennishead: They’re probably wondering where you’ve been for the last four months. On that subject, how’s the foot?
Anna Fitzpatrick: It’s not too bad. I stopped wearing the big boot thing about three weeks ago, and for the first two weeks it was pretty stiff and uncomfortable to walk around. Then the pain subsided and it felt fine for a few days, but then last week I got a bit of pain again.
Tennishead: So how close (or not) are you to hitting a tennis ball?
Anna Fitzpatrick: If the pain in my foot is only ligament-related, then I should be able to start hitting balls next week – just up and down the middle though, not a lot of movement involved. |
|
Read more...
|
|
Wednesday, 08 October 2008 12:17 |
|
 I haven’t hit a ball for about two months now. I was playing in a tournament in Portugal in early August when I injured my left foot.
At first I thought I’d only be out for around four weeks but it was diagnosed as a stress fracture of the navicular bone in my left foot, and when my physio, Alison Rose, saw it she told me I could forget about playing until 2009.
|
|
Read more...
|
|
Thursday, 21 August 2008 22:25 |
 Leading into the grass court season, I did quite a heavy physical block which was based around power. I was doing two or three Olympic lifting sessions a week (the three lifts I do with my trainer Jez Green are snatch, clean and push press), along with three or four medicine ball and jump sessions.
I have to take at least a month off and for the first two weeks I have to wear a cast…
I was also doing one core session each week. If it was during a tournament, I substituted in a treadmill sprint session for one of the Olympic lifting sessions. All of these workouts are designed to maximise the power generated by the body and use it in basically every move you make on a tennis court!
|
|
Read more...
|
|
Monday, 12 May 2008 22:20 |
|
Mexico Blog, Week 2, CoatzacoalcosThe second week of our trip was a short flight away, a place on the coast, called Coatzacoalcos. The first thing that hit us when we got off the plane was how much more humid it was here than in Toluca. We were definitely going to need plenty of fluids and plenty of changes of kit this week. To shake the journey off we decided to go down to the club and do some fun physical stuff - which turned out to be a mammoth game of aerobie (some of the attempts at catching from Anna and Stefy were embarrassing to say the least!) During the previous week, Jason had laid down a challenge to the ‘A Team’ (Anna Fitzpatrick and Anna Hawkins), that Stefy and himself would beat them in a set. Needless to say the challenge was accepted, and after a valiant attempt, the A Team succumbed to a 6-4 defeat, much to the delight of Jason, who celebrated by doing ‘the worm’ on court! |
|
Read more...
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Page 1 of 5 |
