Welcome to all our readers from sunny South Africa where Jade and Naomi competed in the Soweto Open, a $100K tournament in its second year. Soweto is short for South Western Township, is famous as the birth place of Nelson Mandela and the hotbed of activity during the apartheid years. I left SA in 1979 and naturally Soweto has changed immeasurably (for the better) and is now a very vibrant and colourful suburb of Johannesburg that also houses the new impressive centre piece stadium for the 2010 World Cup.

The new Arthur Ashe tennis centre is excellent and the whole experience has been wonderfully hosted, with arguably the best player's dinner for any Challenger in the world. The food, wine and entertainment was first glass in the lekgotla resturant situated in Nelson Mandela Square, Sandton a popular area for eating and hanging out with numerous bars, resturants and cafes.

We arrived 3 days early and both girls practised well, but Jade at present is struggling to put her practise form onto the match court and lost her first qualifying match. Naomi struggled to a 4-6 7-5 6-4 first round win over American Courtney Nagle. She breezed through the last round into the main draw to face the 5th seed  Mariya Koryttseva of the Ukraine who has been top 50 and currently is 105.

‎​It is not often I will say a player is robbed but a poor line call at 5-4 30-30 after a nails point was crucial. Naomi still has to recover faster from such a setback. She dropped serve at 5-5 but again fought back to level for the tiebreak which  she lost. The 1st game of the 3rd also hurt as Marya was struggling and Naomi double faulted at 40-15 letting her back in and ended up losing the game. All in all a brave effort showing incredible fighting qualities. The final score after 3.5 hours was 64 67 76. She deserves a lot of credit for the effort in hot conditions. Even at 0-6 in breaker she fought continued to fight eventually losing it 7-2. She will again hit a career high ranking next week so its going in the right direction.

The younger players were in action in Nottingham where Toby Martin fared reasonably well making a quarter-final. Richard Gabb had another disappointing week in Istres, France in singles but is faring better in doubles. 

Wimbledon Build Up

Last week we all got together in Monaco for our 2nd training camp. It is great to have all players, coaches, Nikos and Andrea in one place even though the week flew by.

Lynn Hillsdon provided her usual high standard of hospitality which Nikos and I especially enjoyed (we are now a couple of pounds heavier!) and Vin Hillsdon gave us an update on the progress of the business. Vin has helped pioneer this ground-breaking Academy and enjoyed seeing the players on court.