Judy continues her blog from Rome.

"Mayday. Mayday. Yes it was May 1 and a major local holiday but it was also a disaster for us at the tourney. Pitched up at 8am to speak to the Tournament Director (an ex footballer called Zigi Boniek who told me he played alongside Kenny Dalglish and Liam Brady) and was suitably embarrassed by our situation but claimed they could do nothing to accommodate our 2 players in qualifying as the draw and schedule had been posted on the website.

The ref was adamant he had been in the tent all afternoon but I was equally adamant that he was not there when we went to sign in and pay entries. The fact that the TD knew we had been on site all day, the kids had receipts for the entry fees and had been marked off on the sheet, and had been told by the man on the tourney desk (who we assumed was the ref) that they did not have to do anything else....had no effect. You won't be surprised to hear that 60 of the 64 qualifiers were Italians who could easily understand and make themselves understood.

We managed to get a practice court from 8.30-10am which was great and then all 4 were given the task of booking a 45 minute court each between 11.15 and 2.15 and finding someone to play a set with. Mission accomplished - matches v Hungary, Portugal and Italy. All of my players needed about 6-8 games to get a feel for the ball against the clay courters and the need for patience when building the point on this surface.

We only have one clay venue in Scotland and that's in Edinburgh. It generally opens at the end of April just in time for the 10k AEGON Pro-Series event which is running this week, so the players had no chance to prepare properly for this trip.

Getting used to the different surface underfoot (and the movement patterns that requires), the characteristics of the bounce and the need to play with more height and spin, takes quite a few days so every minute they can spend on the dirt is a bonus.

Talking of bonuses.....we watched Dementieva practice and it was great for the kids to see how much work she did on sliding before she hit a ball. At least 45 minutes of slide into shadow stroke from 7 different directions.

Picture a start point (base) in the centre of the baseline and a clock face around it which shows only 2,3,5,6,7,9,11. Move from base to each number in chronological order, shadow the appropriate forehand or backhand at each number, returning to base between each one. Her trainer did the same routine but from the service line at the same time. Like synchronised tennis!

They also did some sliding in the service boxes which involved a throw from the trainer and a throw back using a right handed forehand shape from the deuce side and a left handed forehand throw from the advantage side.

It’s really good to work the left arm as this is the one that does most of the work on the wide ball to the double handed backhand. Was so good to be able to ask the juniors what they saw like " why do you think she is doing this exercise?". "Can you see her upper body is always over her core when she hits her groundies? - what does that do to the shot?" "How is she using her outside leg when she slides to the ball?"

We bumped into Liezel Huber at the club this afternoon. The kids were stretching off on the grass near where she was sitting so she kindly came over to chat to them.  Sad to say that not one of them knew who she was or had heard her name before. World No.1 women’s doubles player!

I think she was a bit gone about that but it shows how little exposure women’s doubles has!  They all knew who the Bryans were! Turns out Lieze’ls just split with long time dubs partner Cara Black and is teaming up with Jelena Jankovic in Rome this week.

As we were leaving the club we passed a large grassy area where Vika Azarenka was doing some fitness work with a trainer who was about half her size. I'm not kidding. She was working on a rope ladder with a 3 -5 step sprint after each sequence. This was also good for the juniors to see so I asked why they thought she was doing ladder and sprint work. I was looking for a "to make her feet faster and to get more speed off the mark" kind of reply, but got  "coz she's not exactly Usain Bolt is she?". Hahaha. Wonderfully perceptive.

We headed back to the hotel and wandered out around 6.30pm to try and find a restaurant that was open on May Day in our northern corner of Roma. Not easy.

Five chicken and terrible roast potatoes in a dodgy cafe later, followed by a stop off at a Gelateria for 4 cones (glad there's one athlete amongst us) and back to base for an extremely noisy round of Pictionary in the garden terrace. You may well have heard them back in the UK."