Last week I was back over in England at a tournament in Sunderland. It's in the northeast portion of the country near Newcastle and just south of the Scottish border. It's on the coast so it was cold and windy. Most of the nights you could hear the rain and sleet getting pelted against the window of my room. I was staying at a bed and breakfast maybe 200 yards away from the ocean but off of the main street, however from my room I could see the ocean which was nice, even though most days were overcast and rainy. I decided to book the room that didn't have a bathroom so I had to share with the other guests in 3 rooms on the floor. I didn't mind, but it seemed like my bladder revolted. Every night I had to get up. So that was wicked annoying. Also, on the day that I arrived it was sunny out and I needed to get something eat so I went for a walk. I stopped to take a picture and some creepy man slowed down as he walked past me, then he stopped, turned back and started to talk to me. He asked if I wanted to join him for a cup of coffee, which I said no. Then he pleaded, and I continued to say no. Then asked if I could keep him company. A definite no. He was maybe 50 years old, some kind of eastern European accent, looked like a drug addict, with blackening gums, and a gold canine tooth. Certainly not my kind of type. So I started to just ignore him and soon he walked off in the direction I needed to go. So I stood around hoping he would just walk farther ahead of me. And just as he was walking around the corner I started walking again. But again he stopped and saw me heading that way and came back. He was asking something but I didn't look at him and jaywalked across the street to get away. He creeped me out and made my skin crawl the rest of the day. A great start in Sunderland.
This tournament was my first in close to two months. I was supposed to play a few over in California but ended up hurting my wrist and hand, so I had to bag those. I didn't play for a week to see if that helped, which it did for the most part. Then I had about a week and a half of practice before heading over to Europe. I got here last Monday and I arrived in Sunderland on Saturday and play began on Monday. In my first round I was up against a Spaniard that I knew nothing about. I figured she would hit with more spin and run a lot of shots down, I was only right about one of those. She did like to run, but she didn't hit with much spin. Everything was mostly hard and flat. I started out returning and that game I had three chances to break but didn't convert. One break point she hit a winner and the other two I missed the return deep past the baseline. Then I held and so did she. Then in the 4th game I was serving and had two game points but double faulted on both. Another easy way to give away a game... So I was now down 1-3 but broke her right back and we each held serve until 5-6 and then I got broken. I wasn't upset about losing the set because I had about 5 more break point opportunities but just couldn't covert. I was more upset about the last service game, it was quick and she didn't have to work for the game. But it was a close set and it could have gone either way. The second set started off well for me. I broke her the first game and held so I was up 2-0. Then she held and I got broken by double faulting the game away. Again. But when the score was 3-2 after I broke her again, I was returning at 30-15 in the game I hit an inside out forehand that landed and good inch inside the line and out of her reach. She called it out and it clearly wasn't. But we didn't have an umpire so the call had to stand. I'm not saying my eyesight it perfect, but it should be because of my new contacts that were in, and I also filmed the match and it clearly was in. So it should have been 40-15 and I won the next point so I would have won the game to go ahead 4-2. Instead it was 30-30 in the game and I had another two game points that I didn't get. On the final game point I tried serving and volleying but missed the halfvolley. So now it was 3-3 and that was the closest the score would get. So I lost the match 5-7,3-6.
Some of the statistics of the match were in the first set I was serving at 67% and winning 61% of 1st serve points, but I only won 43% of my second serve points. I was 10 for 16 at the net. But I was -16 for winners to errors, my opponent was -17. So it really was any ones set. In the second set though my level dropped a bit. I was serving at 60% and winning only 45% of 1st serve points, and 46% second serve points. I was 6 for 11 at the net. And again I was in the negatives with the winners to errors ratio at -10 compared to my opponents -5. I don't think I played poorly. My opponent played well, especially the key points during the match. She won a few more rounds beating some of the seeds pretty easy so she's a good player she just doesn't have the ranking to show for it, but she will soon enough. I thought I played well for not playing a tournament in a while. I just need to work on some things, like my second serve, or trying to find a balance between being aggressive with my forehand but keeping it in the court. All things can be fixed, just need to practice them some more and continue to play tournaments. Next tournament is in Dijon, France next weekend. Maybe I'll get some free mustard but a win would be even better. Until then.
