Time to share my thoughts on the very disappointing effort in Madrid on friday.
As I told you in my post yesterday I was up against Andi Hartono, an Indonesian based in Sweden. His world ranking is as low as 400 and he has failed to make it past the first round of the four tournaments he took part in during the last twleve months. My own world ranking is 72 at the moment and I won Dutch International less than one month ago. Obviously results and form pointed in the direction of an easy win for me, but as you all know this clearly wasn't the case...
The first set was a complete disaster for me. For some reason I was not there in my mind at all. Not much I remember about the first set though, it's like a black hole in my memory which just proofs my point about being somewhere else mentally. I think the score says it all: 21-8...
I was able to shake off the disappointment of the first set and played a bit better in the second. Throughout the set I was being very agressive and attacked on every chance I got. Still I was far from playing my best as I was just hitting hard smashes all the time and forgot to use some more variation in my attacks, which is key to make your attacking game more dangerous. Somehow it worked out for me and I won the set 21-19 after wasting a couple of set points.
Third set was much like the first. I don't know where my mind was, but clearly not on court with me! All of a sudden I was giving away the initiative constantly and quickly got down 7-1. I did manage to close the gap a bit before the interval as we changed ends at 11-8 for him. One should think the 1 minute break would do me good and help me get my mind back where it should be, but the complete opposite happened. The first five rallies after the break were horrendous and I lost them all. That gave him a lead that was way too big for me to close with my current state of mind! He finally sealed victory, 21-13, with an easy mistake from my side.
I'm not going to state this as my worst game ever as I have played worse games after returning from my knee injury, but it is very close to my most disappointing game ever. My expectations were much higher than a first round exit for this tournament, that's for sure. Losing in the first round was never really a possibility for me and maybe this is part of the problem as I probably underestimated my opponent.
So many things that disappoint me about this game. First of all the result of course. Leading up to this tournament I have been feeling in excellent condition, moving around court with ease and playing really well, but during the match I never felt comfortable on court and moved around with no speed and power whatsoever. Secondly I was never able to react to the things that happened on court (apart from small periods of the second set). I just kept on doing the same things over and over again even though it was obviously not working. I wasn't thinking at all, I was just playing along, allowing him to dictate the pace of the game. Third aspect of the game that disappoints me a lot is the fact I went on to court without having a gameplan or tactical focus in mind. This should never happen at my level and is just not acceptable in any way! In general my pre-game preparation was just not good enough and I will really have to learn form this. I'm just not at a level where I can take easily on matches like these, I need to prepare professionally for every single match I play. If I don't, my chances of losing will increase dramatically. To be honest it's a lesson I should have learned a long time ago, but for some reason I haven't. Let's just hope I've learned it now!
A possible explanations for my poor effort could partly be donw to the fact we (the danish team) didn't have a coach with us. I'm sure if we have had one, a few of the things mentioned above would not be there. Such as not having a gameplan and not reacting to the things happening on court. I will not use this as an excuse though, as I am at a level where I should be able to handle all these things on my own. I've been on the european curcuit for 3 years, so it really should be a standard routine for me by now.
At the end of the day there is noone to blame for this poor result besides myself. The responsibility is all mine and I will have to take the experience I've earned in Madrid with me and learn from it.
Time to move on, but not to forget...
HK
Sunday, 25 May 2008
Saturday, 24 May 2008
1st round loss
Hi all,
Just a quick note to let you all know I lost my first match in the Spanish Open. I was up against an Indonesian called Andi Hartono. He's based in Sweden and has been there for a few years now. I'm VERY dissapointed about my effort to say the least, but not much I can do about it now... I'm off to the airport now to get on a flight back home. Will post more about the match and my thoughts tomorrow.
All the best,
HK
Just a quick note to let you all know I lost my first match in the Spanish Open. I was up against an Indonesian called Andi Hartono. He's based in Sweden and has been there for a few years now. I'm VERY dissapointed about my effort to say the least, but not much I can do about it now... I'm off to the airport now to get on a flight back home. Will post more about the match and my thoughts tomorrow.
All the best,
HK
Monday, 19 May 2008
New website and Spanish Open!
Hi all,
It's been quite a while since my last update and a few things have happened since then.
First of all I've been spending a lot of time working on a brand new website. I'm still working on a few things as new ideas keeps comming to mind, but the site is pretty much up and running now, so please go have a look at: www.hkvittinghus.com.
It's possible to subscribe for my mailing list on the site, which will give you regular updates on how I get on in the tournaments I play and notify you when I add new interesting content to the site. I hope you all like the website, feel free to comment on it here or use the forum on the site.
Secondly I've been busy preparing Spanish Open, which is to be played this week. Preparing for this event has been slightly different than usually as most of the players at the national training center has been in Jakarta for the last few weeks for the Thomas/Uber Cup finals. An event I just missed out on as I'm currently the 5th choice for the mens singles and only 4 players get to go... These finals did of course attract a lot of attention from the danish federation and therefore all 3 of the national coaches went along with the players to Jakarta. That left me and about 10 other players with the U22 national coach and our technical coach from China for almost 3 weeks. Of the 10 players only 3 (including me) was mens singles players. So I've been training a lot with the same 2 guys for the last 2 weeks, which is not something I'm used to at all. We always like to mix it up a lot amongst the singles group in training. It's good to have players with different playing styles to train with, makes you a lot more prepared for what you can expect at tournament, where you obviously get to play players with various strenghts and weaknesses. With only 3 singles players present mixing it up is kind of hard, but we managed to solve this matter in other ways. We invited a few players who's not usually a part of the training center to join us for some of the sessions. All of the players we invited were very eager to give their best as this is not an everyday opportunity for them to have training at this level. Therefore the level in training has still been very high and I feel well prepared for Spanish Open!
I'm leaving for Madrid on wednesday and playing my first match on friday morning. The draw for me is very reasonable with a qualifier in the first round. If everything goes according to plan and I make it past the first round, I will most likely play Indian champion and fifth seed Chetan Anand (WR 48). This should be a good test for me before going to Asia in June.
That's it for now everyone, but I hope to get back on here before action begins in Madrid to tell you a bit about my expectations for this event.
Thanks for your interest,
HK
It's been quite a while since my last update and a few things have happened since then.
First of all I've been spending a lot of time working on a brand new website. I'm still working on a few things as new ideas keeps comming to mind, but the site is pretty much up and running now, so please go have a look at: www.hkvittinghus.com.
It's possible to subscribe for my mailing list on the site, which will give you regular updates on how I get on in the tournaments I play and notify you when I add new interesting content to the site. I hope you all like the website, feel free to comment on it here or use the forum on the site.
Secondly I've been busy preparing Spanish Open, which is to be played this week. Preparing for this event has been slightly different than usually as most of the players at the national training center has been in Jakarta for the last few weeks for the Thomas/Uber Cup finals. An event I just missed out on as I'm currently the 5th choice for the mens singles and only 4 players get to go... These finals did of course attract a lot of attention from the danish federation and therefore all 3 of the national coaches went along with the players to Jakarta. That left me and about 10 other players with the U22 national coach and our technical coach from China for almost 3 weeks. Of the 10 players only 3 (including me) was mens singles players. So I've been training a lot with the same 2 guys for the last 2 weeks, which is not something I'm used to at all. We always like to mix it up a lot amongst the singles group in training. It's good to have players with different playing styles to train with, makes you a lot more prepared for what you can expect at tournament, where you obviously get to play players with various strenghts and weaknesses. With only 3 singles players present mixing it up is kind of hard, but we managed to solve this matter in other ways. We invited a few players who's not usually a part of the training center to join us for some of the sessions. All of the players we invited were very eager to give their best as this is not an everyday opportunity for them to have training at this level. Therefore the level in training has still been very high and I feel well prepared for Spanish Open!
I'm leaving for Madrid on wednesday and playing my first match on friday morning. The draw for me is very reasonable with a qualifier in the first round. If everything goes according to plan and I make it past the first round, I will most likely play Indian champion and fifth seed Chetan Anand (WR 48). This should be a good test for me before going to Asia in June.
That's it for now everyone, but I hope to get back on here before action begins in Madrid to tell you a bit about my expectations for this event.
Thanks for your interest,
HK
Saturday, 3 May 2008
Going to Asia after all...
Hi all,
After I came back home from my victory in Dutch International I got a phone call from one of the three national coaches we have here in Denmark. He wanted to tell me that they wanted me to go for the Singapore, Indonesia and Thailand Opens in June. Since it was no more than 2 weeks ago I was told not to go as they didn't think I was ready for it, it did surprise me a bit how they had suddenly had changed their minds completely. I didn't ask many questions though, I was just very happy to get the chance to go out there and compete at the highest level. It will be my first time to Asia to participate in tournaments (I've been there for a two-week training camp back in 2004), so I'm sure it will be a great experience for me.
My training the last week has been a bit softer than usual. On monday and tuesday the many matches I played in Holland, in only a little more than 48 hours, was definetly showing as I was feeling very tired in my legs and weren't able to train at 100%. It got better by wednesday, but still I had to wait till friday before I felt perfectly fine again. It's obviously not very good to have four days after a tournament where my level in training is not up to standard and I need to find a way to change this for the future, as I will hopefully play a lot more tournaments where I have to play many matches in few days :)
That's it for now, wish you all the best,
HK
After I came back home from my victory in Dutch International I got a phone call from one of the three national coaches we have here in Denmark. He wanted to tell me that they wanted me to go for the Singapore, Indonesia and Thailand Opens in June. Since it was no more than 2 weeks ago I was told not to go as they didn't think I was ready for it, it did surprise me a bit how they had suddenly had changed their minds completely. I didn't ask many questions though, I was just very happy to get the chance to go out there and compete at the highest level. It will be my first time to Asia to participate in tournaments (I've been there for a two-week training camp back in 2004), so I'm sure it will be a great experience for me.
My training the last week has been a bit softer than usual. On monday and tuesday the many matches I played in Holland, in only a little more than 48 hours, was definetly showing as I was feeling very tired in my legs and weren't able to train at 100%. It got better by wednesday, but still I had to wait till friday before I felt perfectly fine again. It's obviously not very good to have four days after a tournament where my level in training is not up to standard and I need to find a way to change this for the future, as I will hopefully play a lot more tournaments where I have to play many matches in few days :)
That's it for now, wish you all the best,
HK
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