Masterclass with Judy Murray - 14th June 2012 - Part 1

Finally, Thursday arrived so Rob and I took the dog to the kennels as we would be gone all day. We came back home and packed our bags, got changed and then walked to the train station.

We bought our tickets and then waited for the train to arrive. It was running a few minutes late but nothing serious. We had an uneventful train journey and arrived at London Waterloo just before midday.

We grabbed a bite to eat in the station and then tried to figure out which tube route to take. There were some delays but we managed to find our way to Barons Court.

Everytime I go to London I am amazed by how expensive the tube is....we bought a zone 1 and 2 travelcard and it cost £7 each....! That is a shocking amount of money!

Anyway, we actually arrived at Queens just after 1 so we were quite early. I kept track of Ross and Colin's progress by watching the big scoreboard from outside the gates!

Another of the competition winners was Nussaibah, who turned out to be a friend of Zainab. She had decided to bring Zainab along with her so there was a familiar face to look out for.

We all met up outside the gates and then we found Eve, the PR lady. She gave us our tickets and we were taken in by a lady who works for Highland Spring (I forget her name).

We headed straight to a practice court, astroturf not grass. For those of you who have been to Queens, you turn left immediately after you enter and the court we played on is down the end on the right.

We got there and were introduced to Judy. Also there was Helen from Head and a guy called Paul who works for an American company called Vstrator.

Paul was going to take some video of us while we were playing and then send us a clip analysing our technique and giving us tips on how to improve.

His company has developed an app which can be used to analyse technique using a short video clip. The app is called Vstrator Lite and is free on iphone/ipad - Rob has been playing with it and thinks it is quite cool :)

A couple of the other winners were also there: James and Alec from Kent.

We were waiting for two others who had got delayed but after a few minutes we got started.

Judy had us all do a warm up and here's where the fun started....

We had to jog back and forward from the baseline to the net and along the way warm up for some of our strokes.

We started with the 'backward nike tick' which is more commonly known as the forehand!

We also practiced our backhand and then the most hilarious shot of them all - the smash. Judy decided that we should do the 'Pete Sampras slamdunk'!

Warm up completed and we got started on the masterclass. We were split into 2 groups of four and each group was on a court. 

We started off with Judy (Rob, Alec, James and I) whilst Helen worked with the other group. 

We were hitting forehands from just beyond the service line and Judy was giving us advice on how to direct our shots.

After a little while she introduced targets (cones) for us to aim at, as apparently we were doing well. What I love about Judy is how positive she is all the time...and she was so kind not to laugh at our terrible tennis skills!

After a little while we stopped for a quick drink and then afterward we played a short team game. Judy's team against Helen's.

The rules of the game were basically that you could hit the ball as many times as needed to get it back across the net and the point is only over once the ball stops moving completely.

We had a lot of fun...and I am pleased to report that Judy's team won!

Back in our 2 groups we then moved onto attempting volleying. Judy split us into 2 mini groups and one group had to practice rallying for as long as possible whilst Judy worked on volleys with the other pair.

Rob and I managed to hit the ball to each other for a little while, although there were a few wayward shots!

We then attempted a few volleys with Judy. She gave us some tips on how better to direct our shots and explained that it is a good way to improve - because if you can direct the shots back to an opponent (which extends the rally) then you don't spend as much time picking up tennis balls which can get quite boring!

Helen and Judy then swapped over and we did some more volleys with Helen. She set up targets for us to try and hit...which I think we all failed to do :(

She added hoops to the tops of the cones and amazingly I managed to get the ball through the hoop twice!

Finally to end the session we had another group game. The teams were different this time though, I was with Nussaibah, James, Charlotte and Judy.

I forget what rules we played this time but once again Judy's team won.....which I think pleased her :)

So the tennis was over and we all headed off to get changed before afternoon tea!