Jackson, MS

I'm officially back in Florida now taking a few days off after hurting my knee last week. But I just thought I would let you guys know what happened while in Jackson. So here we go.

Oh and know that I remember I don't think I finished letting you guys know what happened with doubles in Pelham, but we ended up losing to the number 1 seeds I think it was 6-7 4-6. But we played really well, we just made the mistakes on the big points, but the whole time we had chances but we just couldn't capitalized on them. Oh well you live you learn right?

Anyway in Jackson we got to play at this very nice Country Club and when I say 'nice' I mean white tables cloths everywhere, 5 star food, and even had white hand towels in the bathroom to dry your hands with, not paper towels or those air dryers that never work...So to me this place was wicked nice. But back to tennis. They had about 12 clay courts and 3 hard courts. The main court sat next to the club house where members could sit in the shade and watch some tennis while enjoying food and drinks. (I wish I took pictures to show you all, but I didn't, and I don't know why. Next time I'll remember to do so.) But the facility was great. If all tournaments were held at places like this one then I would sign up for each and every one.

The tournament started on Sunday but I was fortunate enough to receive a bye. So I spent my Sunday practicing twice and doing 30 minutes of cardio and after I got to watch a little bit of my opponent. Then I Monday I played my 1st round against a girl from Taipei who didn't hit the ball hard and didn't hit many winners either, she just ran down balls and didn't miss. But I got up an early break 3-0 and then my knee just went. I couldn't jump up to serve nor could I run to get balls. So at 3-2 I called the trainer over who taped it up and that didn't really do much of anything so I decided to give myself another game to see if the pain would go away but it didn't so I really though about retiring but I won that game so I kept playing. (Stupid me.) But the girl I was playing was dumber. She saw that I couldn't move but she just kept me in one corner of the court because that's what her coaches were telling her to do. (Yes they were coaching her, which is not allowed in tennis, so she was cheating.) So I didn't have to move much so I just decided to move her, but again she just kept hitting it to the same side and I just waited for an opportunity to hit my big shot to win the point. I ended up winning 6-4 7-5. Somehow I pulled it out without being able to move or serve, so I guess props to me. Haha.

The best part in that match was I had set point and my opponent was serving. As she goes to the line it starts to rain a little bit, but it's clay so you can keep playing. So she ends up missing her first serve, then looks and me and says and motions that she is stopping so she walks to her bag and is about to sit down. So I'm confused like 'what is happening?' so I find an ref and ask her if we are stopping play because it's raining and asked if the girl only gets one serve when we start up again because she stopped herself. The ref comes on the court and tries to explain to the girl that they didn't stop any matches so play needed to continue. But the girl wanted 2 serves again, and she tried to say I stopped so she needed two serves. I was like 'Are you kidding?' But the ref saw what happened and the girl lost her argument. She ended up double faulting the set away...

The next day I played a girl from the Memphis area. I knew how she played, hits big serves and big groundstrokes, but makes a lot of errors. I saw her watching the day before so I figured she would just run me around the court with my bad knee but she didn't. I ended up feeling pretty good that day after downing a bunch of Advil before the match so I could move around the court. I must have surprised her because I won 6-1 6-1. I was happy about it. I finally got into a main draw after about a 4 month drought. So I finally get to move up in the rankings even if it is a spot or two.

Then later that day Yasmin and I played doubles against Alex Mueller and Nicole Melichar and let's just say I'm close to 5'9'' and I was dwarfed by a good 4 inches. But big trees fall hard right? We won 6-4 6-3. It was a match that had only one break of serve so it was fun to play.

My first round match was against the number 6th seed from Argentina, Molinero. Just from knowing where she was from I knew she was going to be good on clay. I figured she would stay behind the baseline, running shots down, hitting with a lot of spin, well I was right. That is exactly what she did. She made my hit a lot of shots and in the end I made the mistake going after it trying to win the point. But you can't win if you miss. I lost 3-6 6-7. I had so many chances to break her. I think I had about 25 break points and only converted 1. So it was a match I could have won I just didn't. But the girl was good, I'm not taking anything away from her. I just lost it myself.

Later that afternoon I got my second chance to beat her, in doubles. Well we were close but again made mistakes when a big point was on the line. We won the first set, lost the second set, then lost 10-7 in the 10 point breaker that decides the match. Again all you can say is oh well. But it does suck to lose. Now I have 3 weeks until my next tournament so I'll just be practicing, working out, and getting my knee feeling better.

Gloomy Alabama

This week I'm currently playing in Pelham, Alabama for a 25k tournament. I came into the tournament feeling confident in my game seeing I was playing well the weeks leading up to this tournament. I figured if I played the was I was practicing it would be hard for someone to beat me. Well someone did, she just played better and I made a few too many mistakes. But that's how tennis is. You can play amazing but not always win, but there is always the next tournament soon after. So my first match I played a beginner, literally. I think I could have won left handed and blind folded. The girl was around 13 years old, she did have some good shots, but needs to practice more I would say. Anyway for me right now any win is a good win. It moves me one match closer to actually qualifying for the main draw. But the next day I played a former Florida Gator Alexis King and lost in a close 2 set 6-4 7-6(4). (I was 0-4 against Florida at Tennessee so I guess for the time being nothing changes.) It was the battle of the backhand slices and on clay it was whoever could keep the slice low. But that match I felt like I was in a position to win but made some mistakes on key points and didn't have a great 1st serve percentage (which by the way is a must). Overall I played well, set up the points well, competed, just the mistakes killed me. For now I'm still in Pelham playing doubles with Yasmin Schnack a former player at UCLA. We won yesterday against Nicole Robinson and Krista Hardebeck 6-3 6-1. We played well. We play again tomorrow. So I hope things go well.

The other day I also got to participate in a Pro-Am event with some of the club members. We played four 20-minute rotations of doubles and which ever team racked up the most games at the end won. I was partnered with a guy named Freddy who was from Panama. He was fun to play with because he was serious about winning but laughed at missed shots and lost games. So he made it enjoyable. Now when it comes to those things I never know if I should hit the ball hard or take it easy because it's tough to find a middle ground. But we ended up get out to a 3-0 lead on all the teams we faced and ended up tying when the time ran out. So oh well. He was just happy to play and it was fun for me to go out and have a good time. I'll be sure to sign up for the next one.

Anyway about Pelham, the entire time since getting here I have yet to see the sun. It's been cold and damp for the last 5 days. And today it has been raining all day. Thank goodness we weren't scheduled to play doubles today because it is the worst just sitting around all day waiting to play. All that happens is the tournament directors keep pushing the start times back, so you get prepared to play then it rains again so you just sit around read, watch tv, listen to music, then you think you're going to play again so you get ready and again then it rains...it's just not fun. But there isn't anything you can do about the weather. I've watched a bunch of movies this week, The Adjustment Bureau, Planet 51, Unstoppable, Megamind, REDS. So that keeps you busy wasting time. I'm just hoping they don't cancel the matches today or else it's going to be a long day at the office. But we'll see. I hope all goes well tomorrow.

Doubles Tour

I just was reading a recap of the Federer Djokovic match (which was great by the way) and there was a paragraph that said Sania Mirza and Elena Vesnina won the title at the BNP Paribas by beating Bethanie Mattek-Sands and Meghann Shaughnessy 6-0 7-5. Now just take a guess how much money they each took home...$118,500 each. Yeah, you read correctly. $118,500!! That is insane. I didn't realize that was how much they got. To make that for about a weeks worth of work, not to shabby... I've been told I can make career playing doubles, so after seeing how much they make I'm going to try and find myself a good doubles partner and get my ranking up so I can play in the big tournaments. For now of course I'm playing the 25k circuit. I am playing one next weekend in Pelham, AL, then Jackson, MS, and finally Osprey, FL. All are on clay (which should be interesting) and they are back to back to back weeks, so I'll see how the body holds up. The past few days I've been practicing on the clay and have been doing pretty well, so now I just have to continue to practice well this week and hopefully it will carry over when it's tournament time.