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Monday, 29 June 2009 16:05 |
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 Challenges
The challenges that professional tennis players face are few and far between... No, no, wait... We are getting mixed up with the other blog we need to write for the national knitting magazine :-)
Yes, as we are sure many of you realise, tennis players, as a whole, encounter many more challengers than the knitter of this world, although we know a few grandma's may disagree!
When we are at home with friends, or meeting people on our travels, they often ask ' So, where are you going to next on your travels?' 'Sweden' (for example) we answer. 'Wow, you are so lucky, it's beautiful there, you have to go to the mountains, see the lakes and the museums!' It's true, Sweden is very beautiful, and it most likely does have stunning mountains and lakes, but unfortunately, one of the sacrifices you make as a tennis player is that you very rarely get the time to witness these incredible sites. All we get to see is the luxury (or lack of) of the hotels, airports and tennis courts.
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Monday, 08 June 2009 12:43 |
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 Bonjour everyone….I’ve been in Paris two weeks now and it feels like I should have my French citizenship. (But just in case you’re wondering….I’m still travelling with the “Green Mamba” aka, the South African passport.* You put that bad-boy down at immigration and everybody jumps back – WOAH!) Anyway, my tournament has come to an end – a loss in the finals. That’s two finals in a row for me, it hurts a little but Id take another final next week if anyone is offering one to me! (anyone…?)
My partner, known as “Big Dick” on tour due to his HEIGHT made his first grand slam final. At 38 yrs old, he decided to concentrate on doubles. The good thing with that is that he (and I) will probably make a good amount of money this year – the bad thing is that he’s probably lost an easy $2 mil in his career by not playing more doubles. He’s improved quite quickly over the last few months and we hope to continue to improve as a team.
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Wednesday, 20 May 2009 22:43 |
 Today the unthinkable happened: Federer beat Nadal in straight sets and Moodie/Aspelin lost in straight sets in the doubles final – just great! I get a “finalist” plate. That’s like getting a Porsche without an engine. Looks great when you first look at it – but then you notice that there is something missing and the initial “WOW” turns into more of an “Oh”.
It was interesting to sit with Roger before his night match against Del Potro on Saturday night. We were in the training (physio) room watching a rather epic match between Djokovic and Nadal. Roger seemed quite amused watching the match and the typical Nadal magic. Djokovic got to match point on his serve and I shouted, “Serve and volley down the T!” Roger laughed and said, “Yeah, you have to! Even if you hit the volley into the stadium you can at least say you took a chance!” There was no S+V and Djokovic was sent packing. Roger seemed to have an unimpressed look on his face when Nadal won, although he seemed pretty relaxed going out to play Del Potro.
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Wednesday, 13 May 2009 22:43 |
I arrived in Rome on Saturday night after losing earlier in the day to Nestor/Zimonjic in Barcelona. 5 break points and none taken and no break points against us....so is the world of tennis. They win the tournament and we take home 1/5 of the prize money and 1/3 of the points. So, the moral of the story? Cry yourself to sleep and do better next time!
Rome was a bit of a grind all round. We had arguably the toughest first round match against Blake and Fish. After a very winnable first set, which we lost, we were rolled in the 2nd set. The previous day could have been my most boring for a long time. We were scheduled for the notorious centre court doubles match after the night singles match on centre court. It rained pretty much the whole day and we were told that the night schedule would remain despite other matches being cancelled. So….it was a day that revolved around a 30 min gym session followed by a quick lunch. Then it was back to my hotel room to watch SKY news almost exclusively cover the latest swine flu outbreak. Earlier in the day – to counter my boredom – I had stuck a world map up on my hotel wall and had begun to mark all the outbreaks of swine flu around the world and nobly tried to link up the swine flu cases with time lines and potential “hot spots.” Eventually our match was cancelled and I was released from my prison and able to go enjoy dinner.
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Monday, 11 May 2009 08:22 |
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 I just got back from practice where the most bizarre thing happened. It was our 1st hit at this new place. We went for a late hit around 6pm because there were qualies matches going on in the afternoon so it would have been hard to have a whole court.
Segnini and I hit for 40min and then we started to play some points. It was just us two, Dave, Emily Webley-Smith who was doing some physical on the next court and some Indonesian guys who were cleaning the courts, in the club. It is a very modern indoor hall and the courts are really nice to play on. Like I said Segnini and I had just started to play points in fact it was the 3rd point and all at once the lights went off, we were still in the rally and I am not kidding I couldn't see my own hand in front of me it was so dark I just saw one little light on the other court which was Emily's mobile phone so I tried to walk to my chair to get my phone out so i could see at least a little bit but the chair was further than I had expected it to be, so I held my racket like a walking stick and walked really slowly to find the chair and my bag. My only thought was if the light came back on I would really look ridiculous bent over my racket. Anyway it felt really bad having no idea where anything was so we were very happy to have our mobile phones and after 5min, when the lights didn't come back on we decided that maybe it was better to leave, so using our mobile phones like a torch we managed our way out... |
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MCTA TEAMBATH TOURING AND CONSULTANCY TEAM