New York City

Today I just got into NYC for an ITA banquet held here this weekend. I flew into LaGuardia and took a taxi to the Grand Hyatt in Midtown. I pulled up to the hotel around 1 and wow is it a nice hotel. A bell boy came opened my door and pulled out my bags for me. Then as you walk into the rotating doors you see this huge marble wall with water flowing down it. You take an escalator to the lobby and find more marble, dim lighting and modern style furniture. So the whole time from the airport to the hotel I was praying I could check in early. I get up to the desk and they tell me my room is ready. Thank goodness! Now the best part is that the receptionist tells me to take the elevators because my room is on the 26th floor, so I head over to a wall that literally has 10 elevators. I get into one and it only goes up to the 24th floor. So I’m like whatever and hit the button to the 24th floor but it doesn’t work so I hit the 23rd. I get to the 23rd floor thinking I could get into another elevator that will take me to my floor, only that wasn’t the case. I walked around the halls for about 5 minutes looking for other elevators but couldn’t find any and thought that I must look creepy just walking up and down the halls, so I just decided to take stairs. I walked up 3 flights with my backpack, my tennis bag, and my suitcase and I was winded. Ha. So I finally reached the ghost floor and trying to find my room was like walking around in a corn maze. I was waiting for Jack Nicolas or the twins to be sitting on their tricycles around the corners. I walked one way the numbers were descending, I headed another way and the numbers were too high. But I finally got to the room and it’s pretty nice. It was smaller than I imagined and the bathroom and closet seem to be on the wrong sides. But that’s just me. Now I’m just gonna sit here possibly take a nap and wait for dinner tonight downtown. Then the banquet tomorrow and Arthur Ashe Kids Day!!! Can’t wait!

I'm back

So my apologies for not writing anything in a very long time, I just haven’t felt like writing anything because not much has been going on. I’ve decided to write this because after my graduation party I had yesterday at my house I realized that a lot of people do actually read this. So in making everyone happy I am going to try and make this a weekly ritual (or every other week). To start I would like to inform everyone that I am currently writing this miles in the air on my way to the Sunshine State (Florida for those who don’t know). This ride down isn’t so bad. I’m sitting at a window seat in front of the middle emergency rows so I can’t put my seat back but oh well and the first half of the flight was a little bumpy not too bad but annoying because it was constant and I don’t like turbulence too much. And I’m sitting here wondering if the armrest is mine or the person next to me but she is leaning towards the aisle so I guess it’s mine until we bump arms and we think ‘oops sorry you can have it’ then neither of us take it for a while. But anyway, enough of what I’m doing now, I’ll change the subject and go to tennis.

The last two tournaments of my summer weren’t as good as I would have hoped them to be. I had a decent tournament in Atlanta, making it to the quarterfinals in singles before losing to Allie Will (a Florida Gator) and making it to the semifinals of doubles with Sanaz before being ousted by Irina Falconi (Georgia Tech) and her partner Maria Sanchez (Southern Cal).

So heading to Lexington, KY I thought it would be a good tournament for me, however that was not the case. In the first round I had to play Ester Goldfeld and I thought it would be a good matchup. But in my opening service game on the very first serve I hit my knee just locked up and hurt like hell for the next few games. I couldn’t bend it to serve nor could I run for her return. I was limping all over the place. Funny thing though was I won 3 straight games not being able to move. Then I thought ‘hey I’m winning’ then all downhill from there. I lost the match 6-3 6-4. But hey, not being able to move or serve still not too bad, imagine if I were healthy. Then in doubles we got into the main draw and got match up again the number 1 seeds who were ranked 300 in the world (doubles rankings is the combined ranking of a team). But our match was great. We played so well and we were the better team out there but we ended up losing 4-6 6-2 10-7. We just made a few errors in the tiebreaker but we clearly were the better team, they just had more experience.

Then in St. Joseph, MO I ended up only playing doubles, but what I should have done was just go home. So my mistake, you live you learn right? But I got there thinking I was going to play both singles and doubles, but my knee just didn’t get better even though I was hitting for only 30 minutes each day. So the college coaches thought it would be best to just play one or the other. I chose doubles because less moving and we certainly had a chance of winning the tournament. I partnered with Sanaz again and we ended up losing in the semifinals to a girl from Venezuela (Paz) and her partner from Thailand (really long last name, not going to even try). We didn’t play so well and they were good so they deserved to win. So that was that tournament. I ended up making less than what a nights stay at Motel 6 would cost. Being a professional tennis player isn’t what it seems like on TV were they make millions of dollars. It stinks being at the bottom, but like I’ve heard, you have to start somewhere.

Now I’m heading down to Florida to begin training after a week off, so I’m hoping I still know how to hit a tennis ball. And for the sake of my stomach I am doing 2 a day fitness for the first half of the week so I can get used to the heat and I might be able to practice for the whole time. (My logic is really I can vomit when no one is looking while doing fitness on my own rather than having an audience during practice).

Well I hope you all enjoyed the newest installment of my blog. Sorry for the delay, but until next time.