Last week I was down in Port St. Lucie, FL for a $25,000 tournament. It was my first tournament of the year and I was really excited to get back into the swing of things. (No pun intended) At the end of last year I took quite some time off and then started back up with the conditioning and tennis in November. I've been up in Massachusetts hitting with junior players pretty much anywhere there is an indoor court. From Weymouth, to Yarmouth, Scituate, and Hanover. But I got some good hitting in and that's all that matters. As the days got closer and closer to tournament time the more excited I got. What I really got excited for was to be able to record and watch my matches because for Christmas I got a camera mount. It's called the QM-1 (could've been way more creative with the name) but you hook it over the fence so you get a view of the whole court as your playing. My senior year at Tennessee I video taped all of the matches and watched them over and over and I think that is why I had my best year ever. You get to watch and critique. You get to see what you're doing wrong or right during a certain situations, or see that you only missed three forehands not a million and one forehands that I think I do. :) So I learned to not be so hard on myself because whatever I'm thinking on the court isn't even half as bad as it really is in reality. So it really is the best tool for improvement and I'm happy I got it and couldn't wait to use it...
So I get down to Florida and immediately start sweating. Being in 30 degree weather for months to 80 degrees is a big difference. Another big adjustment was me practicing inside on hard courts and this tournament was outside (obviously) and clay. I hadn't played outside since October or on a clay court since September. Not the best preparation but I heard it's easier to go from hard to clay, and I played pretty much all last year on clay so I figured I still knew how to slide.
The tournament was held at Tesoro Country Club and it quickly became known as the Club of Can't. You couldn't do anything in there. No outside food, no outside drinks, couldn't park in certain areas, players couldn't sit under the tent because it was the VIP area only. I mean I get the rules but the tent was empty, if it were the finals and they were full I totally understand. But it was the qualifying matches and no one was there. Eventually the players were allowed to sit up there so that was nice of them. And don't get me wrong, the tournament was run very nicely, the volunteers were amazing, and the club was very very nice, I just think everyone was a bit nervous because it was their first tournament so they wanted to stick to the script.
First round of qualifying I was up against Lee of America. I looked her up the night before and saw that she playing mostly junior tournaments, but was starting to play the circuit. She had some close matches with a few girls I knew so I thought the match should be interesting. I wasn't too nervous at the beginning of the match, it was more excitement. But at the start I wasn't really pressing my game. I was hitting shots but without a purpose so she was able to hang around. I got a bit frustrated because my timing was a bit off and I wanted to hit shots a certain way into a specific area and they weren't close. And I know that comes back with time and more match play, so I was ok with it. But my sister Meg was there and she had some words of encouragement to get me back on track. And like I read "A word of encouragement during failure is worth more than an hour of praise after success." Which is so true, so thanks Meg for being there!! You're let's go Cait! got me through. In the match we each held serve until I was able to break her at 2-2 and that's when I ran away with the match. I ended up winning 6-2,6-0. It was an okay match. Good for my first of the year. And thanks to my video I won 69% of my first serve points in the first set and 86% of them in the second set. However, my first serve percentage in the first could have been better, it was only at 43%. In the second it was 60%. I was -5 in the winner to error ratio in the first set - 9 winners to 14 errors and in the second set I was +2 - 7 winners to 5 errors. So overall not a bad start but could be better.
In the second round I had to play against a friend of mine Anamika who played for Pepperdine. We practiced together a bunch of times at the past few tournaments so we each knew how the other plays. We got started and right away this annoying sound kept coming from the court next to us. I don't know the girls name but her grunt was awful. If you've ever seen Dumb and Dumber where Jim Carey asks "do you want to hear the most annoying sound in the world?" this should have come out of his mouth. It sounded like a dieing donkey. Eeee-Yaaaaw every single shot. Even volleys which grunting is so not necessary. But it was wicked annoying and she had her "team" which were sitting in the far corner of the court yelling come on or some foreign language and talking to her in between points. Cheating is common at this level. Usually whoever is with the player sits down at the back fence furthest away from the official sitting in the chair, and the girls either roll the tennis balls to that corner or place their towel on the fence nearby. So after each point they have to get a ball or towel off and it is conveniently located near the coach who tells them in a whisper the game plan. So obvious and the umpires don't do anything about it. Anyway, back to the match because the girl on the next court was so loud I really just had to focus on my game plan and concentrate on the ball, nothing else. The first game I broke her even after being down 0-40 but the next game I got broken. So it's not really a break until you hold serve. After that game though I picked it up and won the set 6-2. I hit 61% 1st serves and won 64% of the points on my 1st serves. The second set got a little bit trickier. I found myself down 0-2 and a point away from 0-3 but I managed to hold, then break, and hold again so I was up 3-2. Then I lost my serve after a long game so we were back even 3-3. I broke right back and at 4-3 things got interesting. Well remember the annoying grunter on the next court? During a point she thought a ball was out, however, she didn't stop play and continued until she lost the point on the next shot. Then she told the official she stopped and circled the mark of the previous shot. The official ruled that she didn't stop play immediately and should lose the point. The girl put up a big stink and asked for the tournament referee to come out, which she did. They were arguing back and forth for probably a solid 5 minutes and me and Anamika were losing focus. Our points were horrible. Then her coach in the back corner kept yelling out to the referee and that was the side I was playing on. So after a point I lost I turned to him and told him to be quiet. Maybe not in the nicest way. But he turns and says "You shut up. What are you 15 years old?" After thinking wow I must be aging well I turned around and saw the crowd staring at me, our official looking at me, and Anamika who then told our official if he could tell him to shut up. I burst out laughing then told Anamika that I was sorry for starting that little mess, but her response was "no problem, I was having your back." Everyone watching heard the whole thing and was laughing and it took awhile to get focused on the next point. I ended up losing that game, but broke back and the girl on the next court got to replay the point because of all her complaining. The rules say you have to stop as soon as you hit the ball and she didn't so I don't know why she got another chance. But on positive note she lost the replay point too. (We were on a change over so we heard the whole thing) Then I managed to serve out the match 6-4. The second set had too many ups and downs but I still managed to pull it out. My serve percentage stayed about the same as the first at 62% but I only managed to win 48% of my 1st serve points. Luckily they were the important ones! The thing that impressed me that match was my backhands. I drove a lot of them and didn't hardly miss any. So I was very happy about that.
In the last round of the qualifying I was up against a girl from Kazakhstan. Again I was playing next to the donkey grunter and my opponent had her coach and family in the far corner of the court where she placed her towel and rolled the balls too...At the start of the match I came out a bit flat. My movement wasn't as good as it was the previous day and my forehand let me down big time. But the first set I was down 1-5 and brought it back to 3-5 and wasn't able to get that last break of serve back. So bye went the set 3-6. During the first set I was hitting 72% first serves but only winning 41% of them. Not good. Most of my errors were coming off of the second ball where I was going for too much. The second set was closer but again I got broken once and couldn't get it back and lost the set and that match 4-6. My serve percentage dropped a little bit to 64% but I won 59% of those points. I had break chances returning but couldn't win them. And this set my forehand was all over the place. I think if I could have made more forehands the set could have been mine. After watching the match I picked up on some things to improve on. My forehand being one, focus on making that second ball after the serve, taking more time away from opponent by cutting off the angles to the ball, and lastly having better serve placement because making your serve is good but having great placement is better for setting up the points.
So not the best ending to the tournament, but I walk away knowing what I can do better and I think it was a good start to the year. We'll see what the rest of the year holds. I hope good things.
