Last week I was in Albuquerque, New Mexico for the qualifying of a 75 after spending a week at home after 8 months in Europe. It was great being back but I wish I was there longer. I got to practice a few times up at the Weymouth Club were I practically started playing when I was younger. It's funny because every time I hit up there the place gets bigger and bigger. But it was my first time hitting on a hard court in a very long time. I was surprised I got balls in the court actually. I just made sure I moved like I was on a hard court and not on clay, I didn't need to roll an ankle before my tournament. Good thing I didn't. But I heard that Albuquerque air was thinner due to the altitude and that serving and slicing should be effective which didn't bother me. When I arrived I was surprised that Albuquerque just under a mile up. It was cold in the shade but hot in the sun. And you were very easy to get a sunburn (Ranked 3rd for Most Dangerous Skin Cancer Cities in the US behind Anaheim, CA and San Diego, CA by Men's Health - just fyi). The first practice I'll admit I had trouble breathing. I had to take my time in between rallies. It was almost as if you were breathing through a straw. Definitely not enough oxygen in the air, obviously. However, I did find out that serving and slicing was very effective, but if you go to hit a ground stroke and don't hit it properly the ball flew to the fence. Hit or miss, literally.
First round of the qualifying I got match up against a wild card Bezdickova from the Czech Republic. She also is a current student athlete at the University of New Mexico, so I didn't know much about her but that's what happened during most tournaments in Europe. Anyway I ended up winning 6-0,6-2. Not a bad start and first match on a hard court. I played well. Didn't miss much and I played aggressive. Sliced it to keep it low, looked to hit big forehands, and tried going to the net as much as I could. I did a lot of serve volleying and even chip and charge off the return. Overall it was a good first round match. I still was breathing heavy though. I thought the people watching could have heard me breathing. Other then that, all was good.
Second round I was up against the 5th seed in the qualifying draw Geuer from Germany. All was well before the match, then I went to jog to warm up before my match, then went inside to fill up my water bottle and headed out the door to the courts. As I walked out into the sun the vision in my left eye was like someone just took a picture with the flash on, so I had a white spot in the center. I thought well that's odd but thought it would just go away like it usually does after someone takes a picture. So I managed the five minute warm up with only seeing clearly out of my right eye. Then I even played three games before I called the trainer out because I didn't know what was going on. And by that time I could see a bit better just I couldn't see any of my peripheral vision, it was really blurry. So the trainer came out and thought it was just a migraine and even the Dr. who was the main sponsor of the tournament came out because he was a vision specialist, and he too thought it could be an ocular migraine because of the troubled vision. So they asked if I wanted to stop and I said no, if it gets worse I would. So soon after the medical timeout ended my vision came back but I had a splitting headache every time I bent down to get a ball. Some how I managed to still win the match 6-2,6-3. I think I wasn't even paying attention to what was going on and focused on my headache. But after the match I head was killing and I wanted to throw up. It wasn't a good afternoon. But I won so I was happy about that. The trainer then had me go see the tournament Dr. who told me that it was probably just a migraine but I also might have some effects of altitude sickness which were headaches (had a big one the day I arrived), shortness of breath (while practicing and first round), and fatigue (possibly). But when I heard that I thought I can tell people that I suffered from altitude sickness which makes me sound way cooler like I climbed Mt. Everest or K2. But anyway some Advil and I was good for the rest of the day.
In the third round I played Abaza from the US and lost 3-6,5-7 and I played awful. Words cannot adequately express how bad it was. I'm surprised the score seemed close but it was bad. I have never missed so many forehands in my life. I even started to push the ball in with my forehand, and I never do that. But when I went to hit the ball a bit harder I missed. I even thought to myself maybe I should run around my forehand to hit a backhand it was that bad. It wasn't like I was hitting deep every time. It was missed every where. Deep, wide, in the net. My first day all year where it was that horrendous. Maybe it had something to do with my brain being on fire and my messed up vision the previous day I don't know but it was terrible. Afterward I wasn't even upset, I had to just laugh about it. So that was that.
After Albuquerque I headed back to Florida to see my sister and grandmother who I haven't seen since last December so it was great seeing them. Now I'm in Amelia Island, Florida playing in a 10k back on clay. Hopefully the 8 months on clay helps. We'll see.
