After 4 days of a fun-filled family Thanksgiving (with 17 relatives), my husband, daughter and I left for Florida. I will be competing in the USTA National 30's Clay Court Championships Tuesday through Friday of this week in Ft. Lauderdale.
Our evening flight out of Chicago was delayed, which made for difficult travels.....Enterprise (car rental company) closes at midnight.....we arrived just before and found ourselves trekking through the airport with a 2 1/2 year old, car seat, tennis bag, etc.
The upside - we packed light, received our rental car with seconds to spare, Emmie (our daughter) slept the entire flight and until 11 a.m. this morning, and I got to hit on clay courts today in sunny Ft. Lauderdale! Heard it was 40 and raining back home?
The downside - in sharing my tournament experience with you, I must admit that I am in fact 30 years of age. I realize that I don't appear to be in my 30's and have been questioned at both National Tournaments this year. In New York (at the Grass Court National Tournament), the registration desk sent me to the back courts to check in.....for the kids' camp that was being held! Today, the registration desk asked if I was old enough to be playing in the tournament and jokingly asked for an ID. Anyway, yes, I'm 30.....almost 31!
Snuck on a practice court today with my doubles partner and hit for a good 90 minutes. Despite my limited exposure to clay courts throughout the training process, I adapted fairly quickly. The courts at Coe are strikingly similar in terms of speed. Lower bounce obviously, but kept hearing Coach Rodgers telling me to "move to the bounce." Coach has been helping me train the past couple of months and repeatedly stressed the importance of moving to the ball.
Overall, feel like I've improved considerably over the course of the past 10 months. Attribute much of that improvement to Coach Rodgers and the Coe College Tennis Program in general. I now have a backhand (after years of favoring my forehand side), confidence in my overhead and my rally groundstroke consistency is higher than ever. Honestly, believe that I'm playing better tennis than I ever did at the Division I level many years ago (since you are aware of my age now, 10 years to be exact). However, I must admit that I am not as prepared physically as I was for New York. Regardless, very much looking forward to playing this week! Singles play opens up at 3 pm tomorrow, with doubles and mixed doubles starting on Wednesday.
Tournament Homepage - http://tennislink.usta.com/tournaments/TournamentHome/Tournament.aspx?T=83418
A couple of fun pictures for you also. Emmie at the beach, and enjoying a spaghetti dinner.
No comments:
Post a Comment